Sandoll Inside
As deadlines loom, why do the items scattered across the desk suddenly feel so distracting?
Just as I try to buckle down and get some work done, today in particular the lively back-and-forth from the neighboring department keeps piercing my ears.
We all know this: the conditions of a space play a role in how well work gets done.
As we work, we encounter a wide range of situations, and during more than two years of a global pandemic we have faced even more variations. As gathering to work became impossible, remote meetings—now familiar—took hold; the boundary between home and workplace disappeared; and individual ways of working were freed from the constraints of physical time and space, becoming increasingly personalized. At the same time, there is a quiet heaviness in realizing that we have not even exchanged a glance with someone from a neighboring department we used to pass in the hallway, for months on end.
In fact, even before COVID-19, Sandoll had remote work and staggered commuting systems in place, allowing work regardless of time and location. However, after COVID-19, as remote work became a necessity rather than a choice, serious consideration began around the question, “How can we work better—and more enjoyably?”
A company’s space is a powerful medium through which its culture is reflected and absorbed. Accordingly, as “the way we work” changed, changes to “the spaces that encompass us” were inevitable.
We Needed a Change
Long-term remote work noticeably reduced spatial efficiency. The imbalance was severe: some employees’ spaces sat empty for months, while certain departments saw waves of new hires every month. We needed to use our limited space more wisely.
Even though Sandoll is by no means a large company, we have five groups, divisions, and fourteen teams. As many as the types of departments, the nature and 방식 of the work are all different. We needed a structure that suited us—working separately, and also together.
Did you know there is such a thing as a “COVID employee number”, like the “COVID class year”? A sad story of a COVID hire: on the first day—equal parts excitement and worry—they could not meet anyone except the People Team lead. We had a mingling task to add more joy to working together.
After all of this, we approached our space improvement project with a different question. Not “Where should we work?” but “We should be able to work from anywhere.” We set the spatial concept as “closedness and openness” and moved the project forward.
These two ideas—“closedness and openness”—cannot coexist on their own. But the intent was this: as the office, once fortified around teams, shifted toward moving on a per-project basis, we would lower the walls between colleagues and departments, while still respecting the diversity of individual working styles—and approach it with care and nuance.
What Should Be Closed, and What Should Be Open?
Drawing Distinctions
The Business Group is a place where lively conversations never stop. It sits at the front line of projects, meeting the widest range of departments and exchanging the most discussions. It probably holds the greatest share of meeting-room chairs.
The Management Strategy Group must always be careful about what lies behind them. They read and create documents that should never be opened lightly.
Meanwhile, developers sit almost motionless, writing code with no end in sight, while font designers weave glyph paths one by one, like an old man carving a pestle. (Glyphs is a font-making program.)
Based on these differing work characteristics across teams, we divided the office into two main types.
The office wing centered on security and face-to-face work retained the character of the existing office as a ‘closed, fixed-seat office’—
while the research wing, focused on R&D, became an ‘open, non-assigned seating office’.
The research wing is composed of various desk types—such as desks with different monitor setups, open desks, and window-side tables—so people can choose according to the day’s air, lighting, temperature, humidity, and overall atmosphere.
Openness of Space. Open Office
A gentle breeze blowing from the southeast makes the window-side spot perfect for working.
“I’m on the island today”
This is a message that appears in the department messenger around the start of the workday. It is a chat that carries the resolve to say, “Today, I need to focus and finish,” without being swayed by any temptation or interruption. As open and autonomous spaces became central, it was no surprise that a separate area for deep focus would be needed. The island—a focus space designed like a private room with low lighting—has become the most frequently used space since the renovation.
Closed Space. Island
The island is fully booked again today—during vacation season, we hope you can head to a real island instead.
The name “island” was inspired by Sandoll’s existing nature-based spaces, such as Sky (the auditorium) and Forest (the chiropractic room). Given the strong internal demand, we sometimes wonder whether an entire archipelago might eventually be needed.
Spaces within Sandoll are named after elements found in nature. This naming system was created when we moved to the Seongsu headquarters in 2020, with the intention of extending the atmosphere of our name into the spaces we use. The auditorium, where all employees can gather, is called “Sky,” as it embraces everyone. The women’s lounge is “Cloud,” soft like down. The chiropractic room is “Forest,” in the hope that it might evoke the feeling of forest bathing. The large conference room is called “Sun,” and so on.
In-house spaces named after elements of nature
Mingling in the Pandemic Era
To allow for more natural mingling even during office hours, we removed the tall storage units that had blocked sightlines.
Instead, all storage was lowered to waist height, making it easier to have quick, agile discussions—and at times, to work at a computer while standing.
We also created small mingling spots. One of them is Moon, marked by a round light that feels full in one’s arms. Following the old sages who recited poetry while drinking in the bright moonlight, we enjoy our own kind of leisure—playing board games with a highball in hand. The regularly updated selection of drinks serves as a catalyst, easing the awkwardness between colleagues who previously had little chance to interact.
Employees—and partners as well—meet freely at Moon, without formality.
Typewriters from different eras, as seen in the exhibition space.
I take responsibility for my own work
No guidelines or restrictions are placed on how tasks are handled. How we work matters more than where we work.
Each person shares weekly or monthly work plans with department leads and colleagues through the system, and carries out work inside or outside the office as needed. Because everyone’s schedules are shared, it is not difficult to arrange in-person meetings for topics that require in-depth discussion. At the same time, reduced commuting between offices has led to more time with family and for personal activities, with many reporting higher satisfaction in both work and life. To address what might be missed when we are not in the same place, we have adopted work-solution systems as part of our policies and continue to fill the gaps through agile communication. While the ways we support work have changed, the shared desire remains the same: to think more deeply about our work and achieve greater results.
Construction has ended, but Sandoll’s office space improvement is still in progress.
As work styles change, new policies emerge, and we also need time to adapt to unfamiliar spaces. Some systems have yet to be stabilized, and many improvements that exist only as ideas still need to be realized. We need to enhance the usability of spaces that are not being used as intended, and there are areas we could not include due to limited budgets that still linger in our minds.
Beyond spatial design, it is not easy to recreate online the sense of connection that people used to form by meeting in person offline. Fortunately, as distancing measures are easing, we are gradually reintroducing offline mingling opportunities. At the same time, we are also considering long-term ways to create chances to connect with colleagues without being constrained by space.
It is a demanding process, but we see all of this as evolution through experience.
Around the time the first snow falls, Sandoll’s space is expected to expand a little further. How can we continue to communicate and stay connected in a way that feels like us? We plan to sit with that question and think it through, steadily and at length.
Sandoll Inside
As deadlines loom, why do the items scattered across the desk suddenly feel so distracting?
Just as I try to buckle down and get some work done, today in particular the lively back-and-forth from the neighboring department keeps piercing my ears.
We all know this: the conditions of a space play a role in how well work gets done.
As we work, we encounter a wide range of situations, and during more than two years of a global pandemic we have faced even more variations. As gathering to work became impossible, remote meetings—now familiar—took hold; the boundary between home and workplace disappeared; and individual ways of working were freed from the constraints of physical time and space, becoming increasingly personalized. At the same time, there is a quiet heaviness in realizing that we have not even exchanged a glance with someone from a neighboring department we used to pass in the hallway, for months on end.
In fact, even before COVID-19, Sandoll had remote work and staggered commuting systems in place, allowing work regardless of time and location. However, after COVID-19, as remote work became a necessity rather than a choice, serious consideration began around the question, “How can we work better—and more enjoyably?”
A company’s space is a powerful medium through which its culture is reflected and absorbed. Accordingly, as “the way we work” changed, changes to “the spaces that encompass us” were inevitable.
We Needed a Change
Long-term remote work noticeably reduced spatial efficiency. The imbalance was severe: some employees’ spaces sat empty for months, while certain departments saw waves of new hires every month. We needed to use our limited space more wisely.
Even though Sandoll is by no means a large company, we have five groups, divisions, and fourteen teams. As many as the types of departments, the nature and 방식 of the work are all different. We needed a structure that suited us—working separately, and also together.
Did you know there is such a thing as a “COVID employee number”, like the “COVID class year”? A sad story of a COVID hire: on the first day—equal parts excitement and worry—they could not meet anyone except the People Team lead. We had a mingling task to add more joy to working together.
After all of this, we approached our space improvement project with a different question. Not “Where should we work?” but “We should be able to work from anywhere.” We set the spatial concept as “closedness and openness” and moved the project forward.
These two ideas—“closedness and openness”—cannot coexist on their own. But the intent was this: as the office, once fortified around teams, shifted toward moving on a per-project basis, we would lower the walls between colleagues and departments, while still respecting the diversity of individual working styles—and approach it with care and nuance.
What Should Be Closed, and What Should Be Open?
Drawing Distinctions
The Business Group is a place where lively conversations never stop. It sits at the front line of projects, meeting the widest range of departments and exchanging the most discussions. It probably holds the greatest share of meeting-room chairs.
The Management Strategy Group must always be careful about what lies behind them. They read and create documents that should never be opened lightly.
Meanwhile, developers sit almost motionless, writing code with no end in sight, while font designers weave glyph paths one by one, like an old man carving a pestle. (Glyphs is a font-making program.)
Based on these differing work characteristics across teams, we divided the office into two main types.
The office wing centered on security and face-to-face work retained the character of the existing office as a ‘closed, fixed-seat office’—
while the research wing, focused on R&D, became an ‘open, non-assigned seating office’.
The research wing is composed of various desk types—such as desks with different monitor setups, open desks, and window-side tables—so people can choose according to the day’s air, lighting, temperature, humidity, and overall atmosphere.
Openness of Space. Open Office
A gentle breeze blowing from the southeast makes the window-side spot perfect for working.
“I’m on the island today”
This is a message that appears in the department messenger around the start of the workday. It is a chat that carries the resolve to say, “Today, I need to focus and finish,” without being swayed by any temptation or interruption. As open and autonomous spaces became central, it was no surprise that a separate area for deep focus would be needed. The island—a focus space designed like a private room with low lighting—has become the most frequently used space since the renovation.
Closed Space. Island
The name “island” was inspired by Sandoll’s existing nature-based spaces, such as Sky (the auditorium) and Forest (the chiropractic room). Given the strong internal demand, we sometimes wonder whether an entire archipelago might eventually be needed.
Spaces within Sandoll are named after elements found in nature. This naming system was created when we moved to the Seongsu headquarters in 2020, with the intention of extending the atmosphere of our name into the spaces we use. The auditorium, where all employees can gather, is called “Sky,” as it embraces everyone. The women’s lounge is “Cloud,” soft like down. The chiropractic room is “Forest,” in the hope that it might evoke the feeling of forest bathing. The large conference room is called “Sun,” and so on.
In-house spaces named after elements of nature
Mingling in the Pandemic Era
To allow for more natural mingling even during office hours, we removed the tall storage units that had blocked sightlines.
Instead, all storage was lowered to waist height, making it easier to have quick, agile discussions—and at times, to work at a computer while standing.
We also created small mingling spots. One of them is Moon, marked by a round light that feels full in one’s arms. Following the old sages who recited poetry while drinking in the bright moonlight, we enjoy our own kind of leisure—playing board games with a highball in hand. The regularly updated selection of drinks serves as a catalyst, easing the awkwardness between colleagues who previously had little chance to interact.
Employees—and partners as well—meet freely at Moon, without formality.
I take responsibility for my own work
No guidelines or restrictions are placed on how tasks are handled. How we work matters more than where we work.
Each person shares weekly or monthly work plans with department leads and colleagues through the system, and carries out work inside or outside the office as needed. Because everyone’s schedules are shared, it is not difficult to arrange in-person meetings for topics that require in-depth discussion. At the same time, reduced commuting between offices has led to more time with family and for personal activities, with many reporting higher satisfaction in both work and life. To address what might be missed when we are not in the same place, we have adopted work-solution systems as part of our policies and continue to fill the gaps through agile communication. While the ways we support work have changed, the shared desire remains the same: to think more deeply about our work and achieve greater results.
Construction has ended, but Sandoll’s office space improvement is still in progress.
As work styles change, new policies emerge, and we also need time to adapt to unfamiliar spaces. Some systems have yet to be stabilized, and many improvements that exist only as ideas still need to be realized. We need to enhance the usability of spaces that are not being used as intended, and there are areas we could not include due to limited budgets that still linger in our minds.
Beyond spatial design, it is not easy to recreate online the sense of connection that people used to form by meeting in person offline. Fortunately, as distancing measures are easing, we are gradually reintroducing offline mingling opportunities. At the same time, we are also considering long-term ways to create chances to connect with colleagues without being constrained by space.
It is a demanding process, but we see all of this as evolution through experience.
Around the time the first snow falls, Sandoll’s space is expected to expand a little further. How can we continue to communicate and stay connected in a way that feels like us? We plan to sit with that question and think it through, steadily and at length.