Abstract
A leisure space, a collective garden is a meeting place, allowing to extend its social network. The gardens studied are also places with a dimension of civic and even political expression. This observation leads us to consider community gardens as "third places". Within the public space, they characterise new spaces for leisure, learning, sharing, working together, innovation and entrepreneurship. In the face of the development of collective gardens in the urban agglomeration of Papeete, this study confirms the importance of links between urban dwellers and these leisure spaces. In the discourse of the people we met, these gardens represent hybrid places that are situated between the public and private spheres, and between collective and individual space.