Kaskus opens new office

The nation’s largest Internet forum, Kaskus, launched its new office on Tuesday in Kuningan, Central Jakarta, marking its 12th anniversary, which falls on Dec. 6.

“We hope the creative spaces we provide in this new office will boost employee productivity, which will lead to contribute more to Kaskus,” Kaskus CEO Ken Dean Lawadinata said during the office warming.

“We also want to be recognized as an official company aside from the biggest online forum in this country,” Ken added.

Raul Renanda, the architect who designed Kaskus’ new office, cited community, wonderland, experience and journey as keywords representing the office design.

“We created several tunnels to connect rooms to make people feel like they’re in Alice’s wonderland,” Raul told The Jakarta Post, referring to the book, Alice in Wonderland.

The waiting room was covered with artificial grass, which also functions as a practice putting green, with trees installed upside down and the sound of birds chirping echoing in the room. “The waiting room could also neutralize everybody’s moods, particularly after being trapped in Jakarta’s traffic and all that,” Raul said.

To access the next room, people will have to go through a wooden tunnel before they enter a spacey room resembling a toilet.

“The idea came from Trainspotting, but in a less extreme way. I used cheap tiles with asymmetrical designs as a symbol of freedom. The room provides people space to write anything they like on the tiles,” he said.

Next to the “toilet room” was the creative department room, called the Kaskus playground. Raul acknowledged that he had adopted the design of Internet giant Google and Facebook’s offices into the Kaskus playground design. (JP/swd)