I had a chance to chat about a friend’s family member’s new business the other day, and it made me think of the possibility of community hubs and how that can be shaped by service design – and in particular, designing services for multiple businesses in the same space, and how hubs have evolved. The friend’s business is a foodie paradise – so cafe, general store, as well as an in house bakery are all under one roof. In some ways it reminds me of what the Evergreen Brick Works does – a fantastic community space in Toronto that has sustainability education, a farmer’s market, restaurant, community garden and, being Canada, an ice rink in the winter. In keeping with the sustainability mission of the space, it’s also created out of one of Toronto’s earlier brick manufacturing facilities which the owners have preserved, and use as a gallery which visitors can explore and see how bricks were made. Evergreen also has a stable financial model in having long term tenants (Toronto sustainability non-profits) which can help alleviate the costs of rent.
What I see happening is a transformation of what a community center (or rec center) is from certain known experiences in a community center – gym, school, perhaps rental space for events – into more serendipitous, maker oriented spaces – so for my friend’s business around food community, food classes, food production, food consumption and food distribution. They pick up on the need for a ‘Third Place‘ between work and home, but shift away from the single use model of a ‘cafe’ to consume food (and often work, as reflective of the increase of freelance workers). These newer kinds of Third Places are community hubs can serve as the symbolic heart of a neighborhood because they’re both multi-use, multi-tenant facilities – and that they’re thinking holistically about experiences and the life cycle of a product within it. Contrast this with existing community centers which have essential services for a community around physical activities (pools, gyms, basketball courts, etc.) but are not focused as much on products and their life cycle. This isn’t to say that the rec centers are flawed – more than the needs of communities have evolved outside of any one domain or activity, and we also need life cycle oriented community hubs.
Each part of a these newer community space addresses a part in the life cycle – so for the friend’s restaurant based on food it address the life cycle of food – learn about food, make food (growing or other methods), eat food and sell food. When we talk about life cycles, we’re reflecting that each part of the equation works on its own but also helps to strengthen the overall hub:
- Learning about food, and space for different kinds of events : education but also community space rentals, so partnering with other community groups like a Brooklyn Brainery to offer courses to larger groups than sometimes a smaller space can provide. This would be one method for the hub to support the ecosystem around it – so involving outside ‘domain experts’ in the community to share their expertise in the space.
- Making food via production and manufacturing: kitchens and places to make the products, and in some place have community gardens as part of the production.
- Eating food via cafes and restaurants: places to consume the products – often the most fun part of the life cycle!
- Selling food via general store of goods to take home: I see general stores in a lot of restaurants and hotels now – in Brooklyn, there’s a small general store in Alice’s Arbor that has a good selection of foodie treats that are also all local foods, so it plays into the ‘eat within 150 miles of your home’ idea. For marketing, having something to ‘leave behind’ is a great way to remember a company after an experience is over. Rather than a paper pamphlet or business card, general stores allow people to pick up products that extend that consumption of a product experience longer than a paper would.
- Scalability to evolve with the life cycle of food: you could even have a food startup incubator as part of the hub to help transition small businesses with their own food ideas and move them towards eventual distribution of products. Incubators are meant more for software development, but the idea of an incubator could be applied here on some level, too.
Part of the joy of these spaces is that you may go for one reason, and end up staying longer to explore the other areas of the hub to see what’s new, what events are going on and how to participate. This also moves our life cycle away from straight production and consumption to more education related activities – and the ‘making’ of products. Contrast this with Evergreen, which has a ‘learn, eat, sell’ model – less of a ‘make’ component at this point except for the community gardens. This may have been a conscious choice since they have a lot of existing activities and don’t want to expand to be everything if their core focus is on sustainability and education.
There is a need for older community centers, but there’s also a need for these newer, mixed use modern community centers that focus on the life cycle of a larger process or activity. A community with both kinds of hubs mean we need to constantly evolve what it means to have a space for communities, and how we can map out the context of use to move outside of a single, primary business use cases (physical activity in a rec center) and more towards these modern community centers/third places. The future of food is one that is evolving like everything else – the Institute for the Future’s recent work does a great job analyzing this evolution and where we’re headed. Part of this evolution is in understanding how to make the spaces for people to keep up with how food is changing, and creating newer community hubs may be part of that answer.
Leave a Reply