Buildner Iceland Slow Sauna Competition: Innovative Designs for Volcanic Landscapes
Buildner, in collaboration with Slow Travel Mývatn, recently concluded its Iceland Slow Sauna architectural competition, seeking designs for a compact sauna and greenhouse retreat seamlessly integrated into the volcanic surroundings of Lake Mývatn. The competition encouraged architects and designers to explore how elements like warmth, illumination, plant life, and the natural environment could define an intimate space for rejuvenation and immersion in nature. Emphasizing the Icelandic bathing traditions focused on tranquility and restoration, the brief called for innovative approaches to combine these functions within a single architectural experience.
The submitted projects frequently featured themes such as adapting traditional Icelandic building forms, using understated material palettes, implementing passive environmental strategies, and creating thoughtfully designed interactions with the landscape. Many designs went beyond the sauna experience itself, incorporating the greenhouse as a space for cultivation, cooling, relaxation, and contemplation. The most successful proposals illustrated that a small-scale brief could yield significant architectural impact through careful consideration of proportions, spatial arrangements, material choices, and the precise control of transitions between varied environmental conditions.
Prizewinning Concepts and Architectural Innovation
The winning entries of the Iceland Slow Sauna competition demonstrate exceptional creativity and sensitivity to the unique Icelandic landscape. The First Prize, awarded to 'Linear Ritual' by Prusha Kadir, Joel Jansson, and Emil Sandström, reimagines a compact retreat that harmoniously extends the existing homestead. This design organizes its program as a linear progression, guiding visitors through distinct zones for arrival, greenhouse, shower, and sauna, with each step subtly altering temperature, humidity, light, and views. Drawing inspiration from traditional Icelandic structures, its steep roof profile is adapted to withstand the local climate, while creating elevated interior spaces. The design emphasizes durability and buildability through timber construction, straightforward detailing, and a minimalist material palette. By blending hospitality, bathing, and food production within a modest footprint, 'Linear Ritual' establishes a clear spatial narrative where environmental shifts are central to the building's experience.
The Second Prize went to 'Slow Sauna - Descent into Stillness' by Jeremy T Anderson and Pascal Henle, which frames the bathing experience as a gradual immersion into the Icelandic terrain. This project transcends the conventional sauna design by orchestrating movement, enclosure, and fluctuating environmental conditions as integral parts of the ritual. A translucent double-skin envelope encases a compact interior, modulating light, weather, and views, thereby softening the building's presence within the volcanic environment. Inside, circular spaces offer a contrast to the rectilinear outer shell, creating focused areas for bathing, cleansing, and quiet reflection. The proposal combines a subdued material selection with a modular structural framework, balancing atmospheric depth with practical construction. Through its focus on descent, softened light, and spatial transitions, this design transforms the sauna into an immersive journey rather than a static destination.
Sustainability and Experiential Journeys
The Third Prize, 'The fourfold ritual' by Marty Ilievski and Clément Vignes, proposes a compact retreat where the sauna is interpreted as a sequence of interconnected elemental encounters. This design centers around a timber sauna as the thermal core, enveloped by a translucent greenhouse that provides spaces for cooling, relaxation, cultivation, and circulation, all within a unified environmental shell. The project explores the interplay of earth, fire, water, and air, using changes in temperature, humidity, vegetation, and daylight to guide movement through the interior. Adopting familiar Icelandic vernacular forms, the proposal combines simple construction with a layered 'box-within-a-box' arrangement. This new volume connects to the existing house while maintaining a strong relationship with the volcanic landscape, crafting a concise spatial journey that oscillates between enclosure and openness, warmth and coolness, and darkness and natural light.
The Buildner Sustainability Award was presented to Jordan Paul Scheuermann for 'Iceland Slow Sauna,' a project that reinterprets the traditional Icelandic baðstofa as a versatile retreat. This design integrates a sauna, greenhouse, workshop, and recovery areas within a single architectural volume. It merges vernacular forms with contemporary environmental strategies, featuring a steeply pitched timber structure enclosed by a translucent polycarbonate skin. This skin captures solar heat, shelters plants, and creates a thermally buffered zone around the sauna. The project's orientation and sectional organization are carefully planned to respond to the volcanic landscape, prevailing winds, solar exposure, and the protective qualities of an existing berm. Rather than a singular destination, the proposal connects preparation, bathing, cultivation, recovery, and reflection through a series of interconnected spaces. This holistic system uses architecture and environmental performance to offer a broader definition of wellness, deeply rooted in Iceland's climate, landscape, and building traditions.