This article is part of our Design special section about new design solutions for healthy living.
“It’s completely changed our lives,” said Sabine Zetteler, a London communications agency director, who last year, with her partner, Alex Booker, an artist, built a kit sauna cabin by Polhus in their backyard in the London borough of Hackney.
Looking out across serene plantings, the cabin is a slice of city solitude that Ms. Zetteler now finds it hard to imagine living without. She is not alone. Demand for home saunas is soaring in Britain and the United States as interest in the ancient ritual of sweat bathing deepens.
Why the resurgence? Emma O’Kelly, the author of “Wild Sauna: The Best Outdoor Saunas in Britain” and “Sauna: The Power of Deep Heat,” has spent the past five years immersed in sauna culture as both observer and participant. She sees this return to what some have described as “analog living” as a powerful antidote to modern life.
“I think post-pandemic, there has been more of a focus on health and wellness, a sense of our own mortality — and also this narrative of self-care and preventative health, rather than just reaching for a prescription,” she said, speaking of the time period after January 2022, when the vaccine had been widely rolled out and most lockdowns lifted.
Like many others, Ms. O’Kelly thinks of a sauna, especially a “wild sauna” in an outdoor setting, as a healthy third space. “It’s cheap. It’s good for you,” she said. “It doesn’t involve drinking. Going to a wild sauna for an hour is cheaper than going to the pub.”
Jane Withers, the co-author of “Social Sauna: Bathing & Wellbeing” and the co-editor of the Substack newsletter Culture of Bathing, sees the revival as part of a broader cultural and physiological shift.
“There’s more understanding from neuroscience of what happens to the brain, and why we feel this deep relaxation — a moment of euphoria,” she said. “We spend so much of our time in the digital realm. We long for an experience that’s profoundly physical, embodied in the moment. It’s about the social dimension, physical dimension and perhaps a spiritual or transformative dimension — a way of changing states.”
The roots of sweat bathing stretch across centuries. In a blog post, the British Sauna Society noted Britain’s forgotten rituals, from Bronze Age sweat lodges to the elaborate Thermae the Romans built at Bath: “Before the Romans, before the Celts — even before written language — there was sweat.”
In some countries — Finland, Morocco and Turkey, to name a few — these traditions have been upheld. In Japan, the onsen — the hot spring used in bathing — remains central to a practice that is spiritual as well as physical. Earlier this year, Yuval Zohar published “Towards a Nude Architecture,” offering a visual meditation on onsen culture in Japan and its deep-rooted connections to landscape and the body.
Elsewhere, however, many other developed nations abandoned their bathing traditions during the 20th century. “In many countries, the decline came with the arrival of domestic plumbing,” Ms. Withers said. “People turned away from public bathhouses, and they became increasingly associated with poverty and necessity. Through the 20th century, many of the ones that survived were in poorer areas. At the same time, medical interest in water therapies diminished, and support for water cures was withdrawn. And of course, AIDS certainly didn’t help, with the closure of bathhouses in the U.S. and Europe.”
The reversal in attitude is written in new products and gathering places for bathing.
In an email, Marjo Karhu, marketing and content executive at Finnmark, an English sauna company, said that the company recently experienced an 80 percent year-on-year rise in online sales, with demand for two- to four-person saunas especially high in London and the south of England.
The company has also worked on larger-scale commercial projects like Arc, a Roman-inspired 65-person sauna in the heart of Canary Wharf in London. In New York, a bathing club called Lore is scheduled to open in September. In an email, its co-founder James O’Reilly billed the bathing club as an alternative to bars or boutique fitness studios (see Page 2).
According to Verified Market Reports, the North American sauna market as of June was $1.2 billion. A report by Technavio, a market research company, predicted that this market in the United States alone will have grown by $151.3 million from 2024 to 2029.
The recent rise in sauna cabin options amounts to a juggernaut. Companies including Kohler, Koto and Thermasol are rolling out new models for domestic settings — indoor, outdoor, flat-pack and off grid.
In the absence of a traditional frigid lake or ocean, bathers who want a cold plunge after a sauna or steam are installing natural swimming ponds in their backyards. Instagram is awash with D.I.Y. efforts like the pond, some 43 feet (13 meters) long, belonging to Jon and Caroline Edwards in Gloucestershire, England. Built from scratch with a mini digger and a lot of trial and error, it is now the heart of their backyard and their lives.
“Even my 90-year-old mum gets in and writes poems about it,” Ms. Edwards said.
Once a rarely used lawn, the couple’s backyard is now teeming with frogs, dragonflies, newts and even deer. “There’s been a definite shift,” Mr. Edwards said. “People are more aware of the power of nature — and more open to these kinds of projects.”
Elsewhere in England, Richard Parr, an architect, recently completed a family home in Oxfordshire with a lily pad-fringed pond. “Swimming ponds have become an almost obligatory add-on to country living,” he said. “They’re a great alternative to traditional spas with their artificial enclosures.” But, he warned, while they may appear low-tech, they demand careful attention that involves tending plants and removing debris.
“It’s a far cry from chucking in a few chemicals and waiting for a pool company to call by,” he said. “That level of participation and understanding adds a further dimension to the enjoyment and connection with the landscape.”
At Ridge House and Barn, a residence in the Catskill Mountains designed by the architectural firm Worrell Yeung, the journey to the pool is as important as the destination. “The audible sensation of hearing your feet on gravel takes you out of that typical resort context,” said the firm’s co-founder, Jejon Yeung.
This shift away from a slick resort ambience speaks to a broader rethinking of wellness, Mr. Yeung said. “The pandemic accelerated something. What used to be seen as luxury — cold plunges, saunas, outdoor showers — is now essential. These are no longer just amenities, but spaces for restoration and routine.”
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