It was a Tuesday in June 2024, just after 5 p.m. The sun was high, and the noise outside my balcony had reached a crescendo of car horns, scooter swooshes and the beat of feet on pavement. I closed my laptop and grabbed a book, blanket, sunscreen and hat, and headed to WordFest’s first outdoor Reading in the Wild “read-a-thon” at Central Memorial Park.
At the manicured oasis behind Alberta’s oldest public library — Memorial Park — hundreds of people were lounging on benches and blankets with books and e-readers in their hands, dogs at their feet and babies on their hips. Calgary Public Library (CPL) staff provided information, book recommendations and tables with books for checkout. A local band played, and a local ice cream shop gave out free gelato. There were no sign-up sheets, nor prerequisites to attend. The event’s purpose was to activate the public space, with Calgarians joining in an enjoyable pastime.
I’d walked through this park hundreds of times, but that day I was there for a specific, albeit leisurely reason: to hang out with others. Central Memorial Park had become a “third place.”
American urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg, in his 1989 bestseller, The Great Good Place, coined the term “third place” for a place outside of your home and your work (your first and second places) for “informal, free social interaction, essential to democracy.” If where you live is the “first” place and where you work or study is the “second” place, then that “third” place is where you socialize with other people outside the confines of personal or professional responsibilities. Essentially, it’s a place to hang out.
For centuries, that third place was typically a church or an outdoor plaza or park. As cities developed, third places evolved in community and recreational centres. Not all third places have been welcoming to all people. Even today, there are many social spaces that are created to welcome certain groups over others.
Libraries, however, are probably the quintessential third place that hits all of Oldenburg’s points. The CPL has no cost to join, provides a plethora of in-person activities and digital resources, and the facilities go beyond basic accessibility by continuously working to make its spaces welcoming and inclusive to a range of surrounding communities.
For example, since 2017, the CPL has embarked on an Indigenous placemaking initiative, engaging and collaborating with Indigenous artists and Elders to develop traditional and contemporary artworks that promote understanding of Indigenous peoples and cultures within Treaty 7 territory and make First Nations visitors feel more welcome in the library system. Jasmine MacGregor, CPL’s Indigenous placemaking coordinator, says visual representation through art is an example of intentionally programming a space so you feel welcomed to visit and participate in it.
“There’s something about people not seeing themselves in public spaces, feeling unwelcome at large, that, when they see themselves reflected in space, or see their identity reflected in the space, it makes it that much easier for them to be a part of those spaces,” says MacGregor.
Just east of the Central Library in East Village, another placemaking and welcoming process has been taking place at The Confluence Historic Site and Parkland. The site, formerly Fort Calgary, went through a major rebranding and reconceptualizing project in 2024 to make the space both more welcoming and more relevant to Calgarians. Recently, the site was gifted a Blackfoot name — I’táámito’táaattsiiyio’pi (pronounced “Eeh-daah-mee-doh-daat-tsee-yoop”). The Confluence also opened a new Indigenous ceremonial and programming space, in collaboration and with guidance from the Aboriginal Friendship Centre of Calgary (AFCC), as well as a new Indigenous exhibit, Kípaitápiiyssinnooni. The Confluence is also planning an outdoor residential schools memorial in partnership with The City of Calgary.
“Places like this mean a lot to me,” says Paula Smith from the Piikani Nation and Blackfoot Confederacy, who is the Indigenous relations manager for The Confluence. “Because, ultimately, First Nations perspectives are derivative of the land, that we are a part of the land. Our human perspective is from places and spaces.”
The Confluence, in partnership with the AFCC, now gives Indigenous peoples and Indigenous-led organizations no-cost access to the space for smudging, ceremony and other activities. By contrast, Fort Calgary didn’t seem to do much to establish placemaking in Calgary. The permanent exhibits had not been updated in decades, and even its significance as a historic site was debatable — the actual fort was used by the North West Mounted Police for only about 39 years and few of the buildings were original. And the fort’s original purpose was literally to police people and keep them out — the opposite of a community gathering space.
The new Confluence tries instead to position the significance of the place and its history as a bringing together of people and influences, without erasing a sometimes painful past.
“For us at The Confluence, creating a park space that feels safe and welcoming, creating a ceremonial and programming room that has no barriers for the Indigenous community to come and access, is really something that we’re excited and passionate about,” says Jennifer Thompson, president of The Confluence. “We want to bring vibrancy and community back into the east side of downtown.”
But, beyond being welcoming, a place needs to be used before it can truly be a third place.
Central Memorial Library and its adjacent park is one of my favourite places to pass by. While I’d thought offhandedly about going in and taking a book out, I’d never done it until that WordFest event.
And that kind of inaction is common, according to design experts. It takes an activity or program to transform an open space anyone can go into, into a third place, says Shannon Lanigan, managing director and co-founder of d.talks, an organization that hosts public conversations about design, art, architecture and the built environment.
“A park can exist, but if you go to that park, your experience can be different depending on programming and depending on what’s there when you’re there,” says Lanigan.
Reviving a sense of vibrancy and community in the downtown area has become a priority for quite a few organizations, especially since the pandemic. The more time that’s passed since social isolation practices were necessary, the more conversations about third places, in the physical sense, have come to the forefront of city-building discussions.
“It’s using the existing architecture and buildings, and things that exist in our community, and allowing groups to reinvigorate them,” says Lanigan. “To me, that’s the magic of a third space.”
Since 2023, Alcove Centre for the Arts, in partnership with cSpace, has been welcoming Calgarians to its multi-purpose space in downtown Calgary. The bookable events venue hosts artist events and provides more than 30 hours of drop-in time per week to anyone who wants to create art or simply meet like-minded people. Resources, tools and furniture are all provided, and the central location provides ease of access, specifically for folks who work downtown.
Bethel Afework, executive director and co-founder of Alcove, says it’s important to create low-to-no-barrier-to-entry conditions for creating, community and play. “You go to work, you go home and then they want you to pay for activities — they want you to pay to play,” says Afework. “There’s something else that’s really important in life.”
While publicly subsidized spaces for recreation are vital to the health of the city, private and paid access leisure spaces are important, too.
A 2014 World Urbanization report by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs indicates that the world has experienced a rural-to-urban population shift. The share of the global population living in urban areas has increased from 29.6 per cent in 1950 to 54 per cent in 2015. And, while not all of the newcomers to our city have been from rural areas, Calgary’s population boom in the last few years has been well documented. CBC reports that, from 2023 to 2024, Calgary’s metro-area population grew by nearly 96,000 people, a six-per cent increase in just 12 months.
Whether it’s due to the population boom or just a general trend in how we hang out, even private spaces that traditionally had specific functions have increased the number of additional activities and events they host.
Restaurants and bars have always had private rooms to rent, but, post-pandemic, you can often find craft and book club members sitting amongst patrons at breweries and inside food halls. These kinds of informal community gatherings have spilled over from community centres to all manner of places including dog parks, playgrounds, gyms, farmers’ markets, pools, ice rinks, hiking trails and the increasingly used common areas of commercial buildings.
Existing commercial buildings downtown, like 400 Third, a 45-storey high-rise, have redesigned common areas to cater to the needs of workers returning to the office after years of being in home offices.
When Oxford Properties redeveloped 400 Third, it built a shared tenant event and hangout space called The Commons in a highly visible section of the tower. The Commons emphasizes wellness, maximizing natural light and incorporating natural elements and tones to create a relaxing environment.
Oxford also offers hospitality programming through events like Wine Wednesdays and lunch-hour boot camps to foster cross-company networking and chance encounters. The idea is to create a community within the building.
“On activation days, we see usage jump by roughly 40 per cent as employees gather for micro-events, informal meetings and after-work socials,” says Jace Jonsson, director of office leasing at Oxford Properties Group. “Enhancing the opportunities to collaborate and socialize has become more important than ever in a world of virtual meetings and Teams calls. Common areas have evolved from static features to curated experiences that help tenants attract talent, build culture and keep people excited about coming into the office.”
Other office towers have incorporated event space in what used to be display areas rather than gathering places. Aspen Properties’ Ampersand building features “social stairs” — an auditorium that has been carved out of a previously underutilized lobby space — and a similar concept seems to be in the works at Brookfield’s Suncor Energy Centre, currently in redevelopment.
As Calgary continues to grow rapidly, we need even more third spaces to help Calgarians connect and feel part of a vibrant and welcoming community.
