Beyond Coliving: Community Owned Third Spaces for Nomads

A third space is a social environment separate from your home ("first place") and workplace ("second place"). Coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 book The Great Good Place, these informal gathering hubs are essential for fostering community, reducing loneliness, and encouraging casual human connection.

Over the longer term, I believe that to sustain a location independent lifestyle, we need community hubs that have solid third space options that are owned by the community not disinterested third party providers.

With the Bansko Beach Club project, we're creating just such a space in what is currently the Guinness Hotel Bansko.

The "Beach Club" will feature 3100+ sqm of spaces that will be operated and oriented towards the needs of location independent nomads. The structure will be via a company that offers shares to the owners of apartments in the building, as well as the broader nomad community who will also benefit from favorable accommodation terms in apartments that will be owned by the company.

This unconference will talk about this project specifically and also the concept of community owned third spaces and coliving projects.