Third-party workplaces: another way to support transitions in the Ile-de-France region

Since the health crisis, third places have seen an increase in interest from teleworkers. These shared and hybrid workspaces offer their users a new, more dynamic and collaborative way of working.

Real vectors of change on issues of ecological, social, economic and digital transition, third places are now part of the political equation of territorial development.

Rethink our ways of working

In the fall of 2021, Paris Region Institut, the Smart Lab LABILITY laboratory and the Région Île-de-France conducted a survey in order to understand the functioning of these third places and to measure the impact of the health crisis on their activities.

The results of the survey reveal, among other things, that Île-de-France concentrates more than 1,000 third-party business spaces with a strong increase in creation since 2018. Among them, there are four types of spaces:

coworking spaces, run by a community of users (freelancers, microentrepreneurs, startups...) who work there in a collaborative manner,
shared offices, such as telecenters or business centers,
Fablabs, where users can control machine tools (3D printers, laser cutters...)
support places, such as incubators or business hotels

[Translate to English:] Source : Enquête « Tiers-lieux et Covid-19 en Île-de-France », résultat de l’enquête 2021 sur l’impact de la crise sanitaire

voir les photos

These hybrid places offer their users an opportunity to rethink their way of working. Indeed, 50% of them offer a space (laboratory or workshop) to experiment in fields such as social innovation, crafts, agriculture or education. In addition to allowing the pooling of resources, these initiatives encourage the sharing of knowledge and the emergence of common projects between the different structures.

These new practices, coupled with the generalization of telework, could change the location choices of the active population and contribute to the reflection of companies on the telework locations of their employees, which would gain in quality of life.

Actors committed to the transitions

Today, there is a growing interest on the part of public policies that attempt to encourage the development of third-party workplaces or to support them. In suburban or rural areas, they offer a potential for economic recovery by providing services to potential users while creating value and social ties.

The proliferation of these spaces indirectly reshuffles the deck in terms of regional planning strategies and residential attractiveness. Many of them are committed to the circular economy by offering workshops for repairing objects or recycling activities. 52% of them suggest to their users to consume less by encouraging them to be zero waste.

By implementing actions in favor of ecological and economic transitions, they align themselves with the social and environmental objectives of regional policies and thus become crucial players in the development of cities and territories.

Read the survey results

Project team :

• Carine Camors, socio-economist at Paris Region Institut, urban planning agency of the Île-de-France region
• Souleymane Mbaye, post-doctoral student in economics at the Gustave Eiffel University (mobilized in the framework of Smart Lab LABILITY)
• Julia Charrrié, places mission at the Région Île-de-France
• Frédéric Prévost, geographer and geomatician at Paris Region Institut