Case Study
Designing for Community
Modular Design System Redefine the Possibilities for Amsterdam's Public Library
What does a library look like when it stops being about silence and starts being about conversation? That question sat at the core of Studio C, a new multifunctional cultural lab developed by Pre-Reserved for the Amsterdam Public Library (OBA) as part of OBA Next, the city’s initiative to redefine what a library can be in the twenty-first century.
The brief challenged the team to design a space that could nurture learning, making, and gathering all at once, a place where different audiences, disciplines, and communities could intersect. Pre-Reserved took the lead in conceptualising this new kind of environment, one that could evolve as easily as the ideas it hosts.
Under the creative direction of Willem Sizoo and designer Rover Twilt, Pre-Reserved set the initial direction for Studio C. Their ambition was to create a spatial system that supports simultaneous uses: reading, meeting, exhibiting, and performing. Twilt translated this vision into an adaptable framework defined by modularity and openness, ensuring the space could shift between quiet study and collective activation.
A key element born from this early phase was the Stapel furniture concept, a modular seating and display system where each component carries multiple identities. A step becomes a seat, a seat becomes a stage. “Developing a system where every object could transform felt like designing a living structure,” Twilt explains. This approach gave Studio C its flexible DNA: a room that responds to people, rather than the other way around.
As the project evolved, Recent™ joined Pre-Reserved to further develop the spatial concept and translate it into ready-to-build designs and a cohesive visual identity. Working closely with Twilt and Sizoo, Valentino Angela, Founder of Recent™, refined the layout, produced detailed 3D visualisations, and introduced the graphic layer that links the brand, space, and user experience.
The visual identity mirrors the modular system itself, a grid-based logic that guides wayfinding and communication while remaining playful and intuitive. A colour system mapped to literary genres helps visitors navigate content, while the typographic pairing of ABC Diatype and DMT VIP bridges the clarity of library design with the experimental energy of Amsterdam’s youth culture.
Throughout development, the teams consulted with local makers to explore materiality, durability, and sustainable production methods that could inform future iterations of the space. What emerged was a design language grounded in local craftsmanship, open-source thinking, and urban youth culture, an ecosystem meant to be used, remixed, and reinterpreted.
Though Studio C remains a concept within OBA Next, its design demonstrates how collaboration can turn an institutional brief into a cultural prototype.Studio C stands as proof of what can happen when a strong brief meets a collaborative process. From Pre-Reserved’s cultural vision to Rover Twilt’s modular design system and Recent™’s visual and technical translation, the project embodies a shared belief: that public spaces should evolve with the people who use them.
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