Hoppers
Hoppers, located in Korea, is about social entrepreneurship, placemaking, outdoor office, tactical urbanism, pioneering, experimenting and enthusiasm. At a more personal level Hoppers means for us having interesting talks and making plans together with Jeong Hyun Cho. Jeong is an urban planner and the designer behind this impact-driven startup with a mission to ‘deliver sustainable urban workspaces for the digital era’. Hoppers designs spatial solutions to transform public or under-utilized spaces into a refreshing, healthy, and inclusive environment for work. And yes, the team of Hoppers is also the pioneer of Outdoor Office culture in Korea.
If you talk with Jeong, she would probably tell you that Hoppers is still looking for the best way to accomplish their vision. But since less than a year ago when we’ve first got in touch, Hoppers has already achieved quite a lot through series of creative experiments. The first attempt was their outdoor office trial service where Hoppers rented out a mobile work KIT to people in Seoul’s parks such as Seoul Forest Park , Namsan Outdoor Botanical Garden, and Yongsan Family Park. It aimed to serve as an alternative urban workspace for remote workers during the COVID-19.
Throughout this trial service, Jeong says she realized a critical barrier in the Korean market for outdoor office to be the new norm – the relative inflexibility in workplace culture, small market of remote workers, and unfamiliarity of enjoying the outdoor life in general. Before developing a product or a service, the spread of outdoor office culture seemed to be necessary. This idea led Hoppers to promote and introduce the outdoor office culture through campaigns and events. At the Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute (KEITI), Hoppers run the first outdoor office campaign for their employees. A pop-up outdoor workspace was designed to invite employees to take work outdoor. And during the Ulju World Mountain Film Festival, ‘Hoppers Shelter’ was installed as an outdoor lounge with Wi-Fi for press and visitors.
Hoppers not only focuses on outdoor office but indoor spatial solutions to provide sustainable urban workspace. Their indoor workspace focuses on utilizing public or under-used space in cities to deliver relatively affordable workspaces. Last winter, Hoppers run an experimental project, called the ‘Hoppers Pop-up Lounge’; where an empty shop in the downton of Seoul was transformed into a temporary meeting point and an open lounge for the neighbourhood (during its vacancy). –It served as a pop-up office space provided with Wi-Fi and electric power charging, where visitors could also drink tea, attend meditation classes, and enjoy photo exhibitions and creative workshops.
Today Hoppers provides a spatial design service for indoor and outdoor events and organises workshops and campaigns to promote outdoor office.Long-term goal of Hoppers is to develop a service and product for sustainable urban (indoor and outdoor) workspace – more specifically, a platform for flexible working lifestyle and a smart public furniture that enriches urban outdoor experience. Hoppers envision the future of work where people commute to local park or affordable workspace in vicinity where they can find a better work-life balance.
