The swimming pool at Kumparan HQ’s backyard plays important role in maintaining employee’s performance and work-and-life balance. Guess how

It was a bright beautiful day when e27 walks into a housing complex in South Jakarta where Indonesian media startup Kumparan headquarter is.

Instead of having their office in a coworking space or a typical office building, Kumparan chooses a big old house as their office. The startup also shares the ground with an art college, separated only with a garden. As one walks on its premise, it is easy to mistake a startup employee for one of the students.

As we walked closer into the direction of Kumparan’s area, we were greeted by the sight of some construction workers building some kind of a pavilion in front of the office.

We learned from Kumparan CMO Andrias Ekoyuono that the company, which just launched its online news portal in late January, had just moved into the office very recently.

“We just did the on-boarding in late December,” he said.

He then took us on a tour around the facilities, which took over all two levels of the house.

Also Read: In Photos: Drone-making at Global Inovasi Informasi Indonesia factory

“It was quite a challenge to design this place, as the original design of the house is already beautiful,” he said.

But Seniman Ruang, a Jakarta and Bandung-based interior design company that the startup appointed to do the works, seemed to be doing an excellent job in combining the house’s intricate and slightly archaic style –completed with gigantic chandeliers hanging on the ceiling of its main room, which now houses the editorial team– with the colourful youthfulness of a typical startup office.

The interior designer also included a special touch of its own, coming in form of a decoration that resembles a colourful spider web in almost every corner of the building. Upon closer inspection, the “spider web” was made of strings, intertwining with each other to form a complex structure.

“This is really unexpected of them,” Ekoyuono said.

While the first floor was dominated by the editorial room and the executives room, the second floor was also filled with different meeting rooms and working desks.

Also Read: In Photos: Meet Toong, the Vietnamese coworking space with the entire country on the lock

“We are implementing the hot-seat system, basically. So everyone is free to pick their favourite seat,” Ekoyuono said.

Though most of the parts in the second floor are still under construction, there is also a bed for those who wish to take a quick shut-eye.

Making a splash

We then walked out of the house the backyard where a refeshing sight of a swimming pool immediately greeted our tired eye.

A flamingo-shaped inflatable was bobbing along inside the pool while a worker tries to clean it.

“There’s another one shaped like a unicorn,” Ekoyuono said, though the unicorn decided not to make an appearance that day.

The swimming pool was more than just a pretty decoration. Recently, a boat was capsized in the Indonesian water, leading to many casualties. Apart from writing a coverage about the incident, Kumparan also published a feature on how to prevent oneself from drowning in the sea.

As part of the writing process, the editorial team used the pool as a tool to experiment. Two writers –one is an avid swimmer while the other is not– plunge into the pool to try out the uitemate technique as recommended by experts.

Also Read: In Photos: After it landed some serious funding, let’s now take a tour of Spacemob’s fresh digs

“Because at the end of the day, our readers expect more than just being given information. They also want to master something,” Ekoyuono explained why they chose to go all the way with experiments and tutorial.

The swimming pool also helps employees to maintain work-and-life balance.

“If we have to work on weekends, some employees actually bring their children to swim and play while the parents can focus on work. The office becomes some sort of a holiday destination for the kids,” Ekoyuono adds.

The post In Photos: Flamingo, chandeliers, and some artistic touches at Kumparan HQ appeared first on e27.