Book Your Time Hub

Authors’ Comment

After the Revolution, Romania has public libraries and in the last decade more than 2000 school libraries were closed, of which the number decreased by 500 in the last two years alone, according to data from Save the Children Romania.

SOS School Libraries is a new project of the Other Architecture Association, a simultaneous research and design approach, developed together with the architectural office A.ttune ArchiLab.

The SOS School Libraries study and the BYT Hub / (Book Your Time) Hub project aimed to address a phenomenon identified in schools in Romania regarding the decrease in school library structures, due to the decrease in interest in reading among young people, the lack of attractiveness of the spaces and the non-updated fund of documentary resources.

In this context, libraries need to reinvent themselves to become more attractive spaces, spaces for socializing and meeting, reading spaces with updated book collections and access to digital resources.
Starting from the design project of a school library in Tg. Neamț in which the A.ttune ArchiLab team was involved and for which it also received the category award at the Moldova Regional Architecture 2024, we propose the BYT Hub mode, which combines the resources analog to digital, a flexible library on wheels. It can be placed in any residual space: in the hallway to create socialization through reading or in any corner of the room.

This module-manifesto wants to talk at the same time about the fact that it is necessary to become masters of managing our own time ("book your time"), especially when digital media constantly "steals" attention.
On October 5, 2024, on the occasion of Education Day, the Celulalt Architecture Association presented at ArchyFest a mobile library module on wheels, flexible, which can house both analog and digital book resources, intended for the activation of residual or transit spaces in schools.