{"id":816750,"date":"2020-02-19T09:00:34","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T08:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/?post_type=articles&p=816750"},"modified":"2020-11-17T09:13:26","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T08:13:26","slug":"the-city-as-a-living-room","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/articles\/the-city-as-a-living-room\/","title":{"rendered":"The City as a Living Room"},"featured_media":819287,"template":"","meta":{"_has_post_settings":[]},"schools":[28,33,35],"areas":[23,26],"subjects":[414,421],"class_list":["post-816750","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","schools-architecture-and-design","schools-human-sciences-and-technology","schools-university","areas-smart-society","areas-technology","subjects-design-and-architecture","subjects-humanities"],"custom-fields":{"wpcf-article-summary-enable":["1"],"wpcf-article-summary":["Our cities are reinventing themselves by developing settings that foster social interaction. These \u201cthird places\u201d include recreational facilities, shops, public services, workplaces, and even non-physical spaces. Virtual environments such as Instagram or online video games can also be seen as third places. The physical and digital worlds are converging into one. The cities of the future will have to accept the fact that third places are no longer necessarily physical. How can we combat the growing sense of loneliness in cities when people no longer have a reason to leave their living room?"],"wpcf-article-leadin":["Interactions among inhabitants and visitors are the essence of a city. Cities that encourage social interaction are healthier and happier. Hence the current trend of designing \u201cthird places\u201d that encourage social relations. The goal is to provide settings for interaction\u2014urban living rooms\u2014to address the growing challenge of loneliness among city dwellers."],"wpcf-article-body":["An urbanite is defined as someone who is \u201ccomfortable with the customs of city life.\u201d In the most literal sense of the term, city planners are taking a profoundly urbanite turn by designing activities and spaces that encourage social interaction.\r\n\r\nRecreational facilities, stores, public buildings, infrastructure, workspaces, and even transport are being reimagined as \u201cthird places\u201d\u2014settings that generate social experiences. Paradoxical though it may seem, any corner of a city can achieve this goal.\r\n\r\nThe term third place<\/em> was coined by the sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 book The Great Good Place<\/em>. In Oldenburg\u2019s telling, the first place is your home and the second place is your place of work. The third place, no less vital to individual well-being, is the realm where a community\u2019s social life plays out.\r\n
At places of employment, the barriers separating work and leisure\u2014not to mention the physical and digital worlds\u2014have become blurred.<\/blockquote>\r\nTransformations in search of social essence<\/strong>\r\n\r\nSocial interactions, human<\/a> contact, and interpersonal relations define the health of contemporary urbanites. Private and public initiatives have developed environments that seek to maximize these factors. London\u2019s Boxpark, a pop-up mall built from shipping containers, features shops, restaurants, art galleries, and office space for non-profit groups. Major retailers such as Nike, Calvin Klein, and Lacoste have taken part in the project, which was first launched in 2011 and has since spread to other cities across the globe.\r\n\r\nAnother example is Madrid\u2019s Matadero. This former slaughterhouse is now a city-owned facility for activities quite unlike its original purpose. In essence, the Matadero is a cultural laboratory where ideas from a wide range of disciplines are shared. Users help to create and spread culture, taking part in a democratized process previously reserved for elite creators and producers. The Matadero grounds also feature recreational spaces, caf\u00e9s, bars, and communal kitchens.\r\n\r\nAt places of employment, the barriers separating work and leisure\u2014not to mention the physical and digital worlds\u2014have become blurred. Hyperconnected offices have remade the very notion of the workplace. What was once a place where attendance was required in order to perform a particular activity is now a hub, a meeting point, a space designed for comfort. Nowhere is this clearer than at coworking spaces, where interpersonal interaction is a major draw.\r\n\r\nNumerous coworking startups have emerged in recent years, including Regus, WeWork, Utopicus (subsidiary of Colonial), Spaces, Aticco (in Barcelona), Negocenter, and Monday. Despite the recent upheaval at WeWork, it is clear that the demand for shared workspaces is on the rise.\r\n\r\nCoworking spaces are attractive to millennials, a generation that is generally reluctant to commit to a particular organization. The promise of networking in the workplace has proved persuasive to this demographic.\r\n\r\nThanks to the advances of numerous tech<\/a> firms, hyperconnectivity now dominates our public space and will soon be available on most modes of transport, making work truly ubiquitous.\r\n
In today\u2019s hyperconnected world, loneliness is on the rise in every age group.<\/blockquote>\r\nInstagram: a third place?<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThe virtues of the third place extend to certain virtual environments. In recent years, Instagram has emerged as the social network with the greatest potential to serve as a third place.\r\n\r\nBut what will happen as the physical and digital worlds converge? If we can satisfy our need for human<\/a> contact from the comfort of our own homes, do we even need physical spaces? Around 2.5\u00a0billion people play online video games, so gamers have countless opportunities for interaction. Similarly, mobility services like Lyft, Uber, and Cabify could become third places by promoting interaction and comfort. Future generations may not even need to leave their homes in order to interact with other people. The big challenge for cities will be to combat the silent global<\/a> epidemic of loneliness.\r\n\r\nAlthough loneliness is not recognized as a clinical disorder, the World Economic Forum, citing a study by Utah\u2019s Brigham Young University, has identified this condition as one of the greatest threats to people\u2019s survival. Research has shown that social isolation can increase the risk of early death by up to 50%. Paradoxically, in today\u2019s hyperconnected world, loneliness is on the rise in every age group. Now more than ever, third places are a crucial component of the urban fabric.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00a9 IE Insights."],"wpcf-article-extract-enable":["1"],"wpcf-article-extract":["By Cristina Mateo<\/strong>. Interactions among inhabitants and visitors are the essence of a city. Cities that encourage social interaction are healthier and happier. Hence the current trend of designing \u201cthird places\u201d that encourage social relations. The goal is to provide settings for interaction\u2014urban living rooms\u2014to address the growing challenge of loneliness among city dwellers."]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles\/816750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/articles"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"schools","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/schools?post=816750"},{"taxonomy":"areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/areas?post=816750"},{"taxonomy":"subjects","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/subjects?post=816750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}