SaunaScape

The Canadian design firm Castor has come up with the ultimate portable sauna: A sauna in a shipping container.

Their sauna is built into a custom 8 x 8 x 8 foot (244 cm) shipping container. Inside is a sauna made from western red cedar and a wood fired stove. A solar panel on the roof powers a sound system that can play tunes from your iPod or your electric guitar. Thoughtful details like an antler door handle, a magnetic truck light and a wool toque are included. The full specs are here (PDF).

if you’d like one for your back country retreat, you can contact the designers directly, or visit one of their retailers like Matter in NYC. Matter sells the shipping container saunas for a cool $41,000.

Meanwhile, if you are outfitting a mobile headquarters and need something more institutional, the Norwegian company Uniteam can provide you with a “quick deployable and movable sauna container.”

Uniteam offers a whole range of container-based facilities: From shelters to medical facilities to specialty systems for oil and gas production sites.

Hat tips to Architizer and Sauna Sessions for this one.

The Canadian design firm Castor has come up with the ultimate portable sauna: A sauna in a shipping container. Their sauna is built into a custom 8 x 8 x...

Inside Sauna Obscura (photo by Heidi Lunabba)

Turku, Finland is approaching their turn as one of the European Capitals of Culture for 2011 in a traditionally Finnish way: Their SaunaLab project is elevating the sauna to art.

There are four saunas being built for this festival:

• The Hot Cube is a minimalistic sauna in a cube shape that sits over a river. Sauna bathers can look through the open floor to watch the river flowing below.
• The Solaris-sauna is a transparent sauna that has been installed in the town square.
• Sauna Obscura allows you to sauna inside of a camera. Special optics on this floating sauna project the surroundings onto the walls and bathers in the sauna.
• The Sounding Dome Sauna is shaped like a garlic bulb and has its own sound scape that changes with the temperature and humidity inside of the sauna.

The saunas will be open to the public from June 1 through August 21 of this year. All of the saunas except the Hot Cube can be used individually for about €10 per person. Groups can reserve a sauna for 50 minutes for € 60 €100.  Advance tickets may be purchased via the Sauna Lab website.

If you plan to use one of the saunas, the organizers are requesting you wear a swimsuit. You need to provide your own swimsuit and towel.

Additional sauna related art works are on display throughout the year, including several photo exhibitions. The full list of what is happening and when is available on the city’s website.

If you are planning to go, Turku is about two hours drive from Helsinki. You can book a hotel with a sauna for your stay on our website.

via The Independent

Turku, Finland is approaching their turn as one of the European Capitals of Culture for 2011 in a traditionally Finnish way: Their SaunaLab project is elevating the sauna to art....

If you find yourself in Milan for Milan Design Week 2011, you can see the Mammoth Sauna at the Design Royale all night party on April 15th. Italian architects Atlier Forte are building a sauna of mammoth proportions in the shape of the prehistoric mammoth.

The structure is planned to be 10 meters (32 feet) tall with 6 meter (20 foot) long iron tusks attached to its head. Water is to flow from the tusks and under the belly from a tank in the creation’s iron head.

The finished sauna will be on display at Design Royale, an all-night party beginning at 11pm on April 15 at via della Moscova 28, Milan. Beginning on April 12, visitors can stop by in the afternoons to watch the construction of this and the other works to be on display at the event. There is no word of what will happen to the sauna after the party ends.

Design Royale via Modern Marvels.net

If you find yourself in Milan for Milan Design Week 2011, you can see the Mammoth Sauna at the Design Royale all night party on April 15th. Italian architects Atlier...