Thomas Sandell

Thomas Sandell (b. 1959 in Jakobstad, Finland) is a Swedish architect and designer who graduated from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in 1985. In 1995 he co-founded sandellsandberg, a practice integrating architecture, product design, and communications, one of the first Swedish firms to bring all three disciplines under a single roof.

Sandell’s clients have included Artek, Cappellini, B&B Italia, and IKEA of Sweden. His connection to IKEA gained particular visibility through the IKEA PS project, initiated in the early 1990s and launched at the Salone del Mobile in Milan in 1995 under the banner of democratic design. Sandell was among the prominent designers invited to contribute, with the collection’s stated ambition being to unite high design quality with low price, what IKEA then called the five dimensions of democratic design.

Sandell’s contributions to the PS collection included seating, and his work for the line exemplifies the architectural restraint that runs through everything he designs: clean geometries, materials presented without ornament, forms that do not try to say more than they need to. He received a Red Dot Award in 2002 for the VÅGÖ design for IKEA. Beyond product work, Sandell has designed institutional interiors including spaces for the Museum of Modern Art and the Swedish Museum of Architecture in Stockholm. His IKEA work represents one facet of a broader career that unusually straddles architecture, product design, and visual communication.