Place ballet, and trip chaining

I spotted "place ballet" in a post from Matilda Lucy this week, and it's been rattling around my brain ever since.

For the uninitiated, which was me about twenty four hours ago, place ballet is a term coined by David Seamon to describe how we move through familiar spaces. Coffee shops, coworking spots, library nooks. Encountering the same people again and again until, suddenly, we're part of a micro community.

It's not forced networking. It's just life, unfolding in the same places, in sync with the same faces.

Which got me thinking about "engineered serendipity", a term I first heard at PLATF9RM back in 2016. If I'm honest, it always felt a bit too structured. Like trying to force magic. It's the corporate world's attempt to design the chance encounters that lead to new ideas and collaborations. Useful, sure. But a bit clinical. And don't get me started on water cooler moments.

Place ballet feels more human. More about the rhythm of everyday interaction in third spaces, the places that aren't home and aren't work, but are essential for connection.

Then there's the other half of it. Trip chaining.

Trip chaining is the art, or the necessary evil, of planning your day around multiple stops. Work, nursery, shops, a neighbour's house to feed their cat, back to the shop because you forgot the milk, then finally home, only to realise you forgot the thing you actually went out for in the first place.

And it's mostly women doing it. Carrying a laptop, a toddler, three shopping bags digging into their hands, and the mental weight of remembering that it's World Book Day tomorrow and there's no costume.

Put the two ideas together and you get something useful. Place ballet is the pattern people fall into when a place fits their life. Trip chaining is the reason most places don't.

If you want people to become regulars, the building has to survive contact with the rest of their day.