BE OPEN BLOG

Small in scale but rich in ritual, the sauna invites experimentation with materials, energy systems, and spatial experience in ways that larger buildings often cannot. In this new wave of sauna design, innovation is not limited to high tech solutions. It also emerges through self building, reuse, and a renewed focus on community and landscape. The following three projects highlight how contemporary sauna design balances pleasure with responsibility, offering spaces that feel both deeply personal and culturally relevant.

Floating gently on a Norwegian lake, Watercave is a timber sauna that treats bathing as a quiet, almost ceremonial act. Designed and built by student led Rabagast Studio, the project sits on an existing pontoon at Opaker Gård, an eco farm that wanted to give something back to its local community. Completed in just two weeks, the sauna demonstrates how speed and simplicity can still produce a deeply atmospheric space.

Rather than opening outward to the surrounding landscape, the form turns inward. Inspired by nearby hills and forests, the designers shaped the sauna like a carved out cave, focusing on sensory reduction rather than visual spectacle. The dark, charred timber interior intensifies this effect, creating a cocooned environment that contrasts with the openness of the lake beyond.

Externally, the timber structure is left exposed and infilled with horizontal planks on three sides, while the fourth is clad in small timber shingles made from leftover panels. A large window next to the wood burning stove frames views across the water, allowing moments of connection to the landscape without disrupting the inward focus of the ritual. Inside, pale aspen benches face the window, offering visual relief against the darkened walls.

Practical considerations shaped the design as much as atmosphere. The sauna sits at a slight angle to balance weight distribution on the floating pontoon, a decision echoed in the sloping eaves of the corrugated polycarbonate roof. Designed to shed heavy snow and blend into the pale surroundings, the roof reflects the team’s realization that they were thinking as much like boatbuilders as architects. The result is a structure that feels both experimental and grounded in craft.

Where Watercave explores intimacy and ritual, Thermasol’s Solaris sauna addresses innovation at a systems level. Claimed to be the first fully solar powered, off grid sauna in the United States, Solaris responds to growing demand for wellness experiences that align with energy conscious lifestyles. Designed as a plug and play unit, it can be installed in remote locations where traditional power infrastructure is unavailable.

Solaris reaches temperatures of up to 76 degrees Celsius within 30 to 40 minutes, matching the performance of conventional electric or wood fired saunas while dramatically reducing operational emissions. Integrated solar panels line the exterior, working alongside insulated, high efficiency thermal panels and energy conscious heating cycles that retain heat for longer periods.

This approach directly challenges the carbon footprint of traditional saunas, which often rely on electricity generated from fossil fuels or wood burning stoves that contribute to air pollution. By shifting the energy source entirely to solar power, Solaris reframes the sauna as a responsible luxury rather than an indulgent one.

Despite its technical focus, the interior remains rooted in tradition. Brushed alder benches, ambient lighting, and carefully controlled airflow echo Finnish sauna principles, including the ability to enjoy Löyly by pouring water over heated stones. Tinted glass windows bring in natural light while preserving privacy, ensuring that innovation does not come at the cost of atmosphere. Solaris shows how technology can quietly support ritual rather than overshadow it.

In Brno, Czech studio Ika Architekti took a radically different approach, turning constraint and scavenging into a design philosophy. Built beneath an apple tree in the garden of co founder Tomás Dvořák, Upcycled Sauna is a four square metre structure made almost entirely from second hand and salvaged materials. The project grew from a desire to build with their own hands and step away from purely digital architectural practice.

The sauna stands on a foundation of salvaged railway sleepers and is constructed from wooden pallets filled with sheep wool insulation. Inside, spruce planks line the walls, while cement bonded particle boards behind the stove improve heat retention and durability. The same boards line the floor, also insulated with wool sourced cheaply from a local shepherd.

The construction process embraced imperfection. Because the materials varied in size and condition, plates and brackets were used to hold everything together. According to the architects, these were the only new materials introduced. Insulating the structure by hand with raw sheep wool became one of the most memorable parts of the build, turning labor into a tactile and personal experience.

Outside, second hand corrugated fibreglass panels clad the sauna, overlapped like scales and gently curved around the corners to soften the building’s appearance. The panels also conceal the entrance, giving the small structure a playful sense of mystery. Nearby, an old mining cart was repurposed into a cooling pool and painted gold, completing a project that celebrates ingenuity, humor, and the quiet satisfaction of reuse.

Whether through floating construction, renewable energy systems, or hands on upcycling, each of the three projects reimagines the sauna as a testing ground for ideas that extend far beyond heat and steam.