I don't know if this will bear out but for me a Third Space has a slightly different context.

My graduate work is a combination of marketing at ASU and educational technology at BSU.

Third Space in the marketing literature comes out of Bowling Alone http://bowlingalone.com/ and how the white middle and working class moved away from neighborhoods and into suburbia. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

and also Oldenburg , R. (1989). The great good place. New York: Marlowe & Company. https://www.pps.org/reference/roldenburg/ who wrote about what what essentially was the setting for the Cheers.

https://youtu.be/4L_vWpTAra8

https://youtu.be/h-mi0r0LpXo

In educational technology, online learning and especially research in game based learning

Online learning communities are looked at as third spaces or third places. There's been a bit written about this especially in the MMO World of Warcraft.

Steinkuehler, C. A., & Williams, D. (2006). Where everybody knows your (screen) name: Online games as “third places.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication , 11(4), 885–909. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00300.x

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00300.x/pdf

Conflict is an opportunity.

Aikido is a way towards peace but one cannot deny the conflict.

This is why safe spaces can be exactly the opposite.