NOD Makerspace

Organization Background

NOD in Romanian can be translated to knot in English, and in the context of the NOD Makerspace provides a reference to tying or connecting a community together who are interested in creative design. Located in a redeveloped building that, in the 1970s, was a cotton factory located on the Dâmbovita River, located near the city center. NOD currently occupies 1000 m² (10,764 ft²) and has begun developing additional space in the building for an expansion. Bucharest is the capital city of Romania with a population of over 1.88 million (CIA, 2015). NOD is located in the southeastern sector four and easily navigable by public transportation. The space was opened in 2015 after considerable redevelopment efforts to transform the space from an industrial cotton factory into its current configuration as a makerspace with several offices and studios. Irina Mocanu, the assistant manager for NOD, answered the interview questions and provided a guided tour of the space. Prior to working at NOD, Mocanu studied architecture and prior to that worked in graphic design. According to the 2016 Romanian journal Wall-Street (2016), the initial investment for the space was €120,000 with 40% of the materials donated by various Bucharest and other multinational corporations. Mocanu noted the significance of NOD:

The NOD building is part of a larger complex located just off the main street (Splaiul Unirii), surrounded by a fence and security shed. The only sign to the building is a small NOD logo near the entry door leading to the space. Walking into the building the first floor is vacant and under construction, with bare concrete walls and floors. Upon reaching the second floor there is another small sign with the NOD logo and a door with an RFID reader, used to provide members access to the space. On the inside the NOD makerspace is a rectangle with offices on the outside of the space and in the center/core of the space are the studios. Once inside, there is a welcome desk usually manned by a volunteer, to greet visitors and to help new members. Moving inside the space down a hallway there is a large classroom with a projector and screen. Also, located in the main hallway is Eematico, a separate closed space dedicated to youth after-school making activities. Eematico in Romanian can be translated to plays, tinkering, experimentation, exhaustive use of technology developed by humans and information transmitted. Next, turning the corner, there are 15 offices available for rent that then open up to a large 300 m² (984 ft²) area of common room. Figure 1 shows the common work areas where members can rent a desk or work on the tables and store the projects in the space.

Figure 1.

Common work area

Mocanu notes that the airplane hanging in the space was built and flown by one of the members but subsequently crashed, so it was then hung and used as a decoration. Figure 2 shows a longboard developed for skateboarding created on a CNC router developed by a NOD member. According to Mocanu this is the 11^th prototype of the skateboard.

Figure 2.

Longboard prototype 11