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Cafe au Play - A Third Place with children
February 4th, 2009 by Mike Knutson
Not all coffee houses that set out to become third places succeed. Here’s one, however, that I think has great potential.
The Café au Play plan excites me. Too often businesses attempt to achieve the features of third places, but exclude children. Not only does this defeat the “leveling” functions of third places, but it also deprives our children of an opportunity to learn how to act and interact with adults.
That doesn’t mean that Café au Play has a free ride to success. Lots of adults visit third places to avoid kids. I suspect the venture’s success will rest on its ability to create positive social interaction between adults and children - the opposite of a McDonald’s Playland where kids often run wild while parents relax and eat.
Tags: Cafe au Play, children, coffee shop, third places
Posted in Community Development, In the News, Quality of Life, Rural, Uncategorized | Comments (
4 )
February 4th, 2009 at 11:18 am
I’m creating a “third place” for kids and parents in the front yard of my home in Menlo Park, CA. See the following article:
http://pamp.playborhood.com/site/article/making_our_front_yard_into_an_outdoor_family_room/
I have many more details about this that are not in the article - I’ve been waiting to get city planning approval before spilling the beans. Here are the basics: 1) a ground-level trampoline surrounded by beanbag couches, 2) a very long 4-foot high outdoor whiteboard, 3) lots of bench seats, all of which have storage underneath for drinks, munchies, board games, books, etc., 4) a table, and 5) a projector + computer under one of the bench seats to project photos, DVDs, etc. on part of the white board and play music.
Although I very much applaud Cafe Au Play, I believe my project has the potential to make much more impact than that one because a very large percentage of people do not live within walking distance of a retail space that could be converted into a cafe. I’m trying to create opportunities for kids to have some independence in a third place close to their home. Front yards offer really only opportunity to create kids’ third places.
February 4th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Mike,
Great idea! I’m all for kids having more “unstructured time”. I doubt you would have much trouble with zoning your concept in most rural communities in our neck of the woods. Some of our readers who are community planning professionals are probably saying “Zoning? What zoning?”
Perhaps Mike’s idea should be something the DeSignSD team works into the next project?
http://designsd.wordpress.com
http://reimaginerural.com/designing-third-places-in-south-dakota
http://reimaginerural.com/former-blind-school-project-moves-forward
February 4th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Let me know if you want to talk more. You can email me directly at mike@playborhood.com. I have a lot more to say about creating third places right in existing neighborhoods.
December 16th, 2009 at 9:06 am
The website was decisively fantastic! Lots of good information and animus, both of which we all need!