Scandinavian Architect’s Luxury Sauna Sweeps Across Europe

Former high-end architect traded the London office for a life designing luxury saunas. The world’s first architect-designed mobile sauna is now set to take over Europe after huge success in Scandinavia.

In recent years, the sauna trend has spread widely across the globe. A Dano-Swedish couple saw the opportunity three years ago and laid the foundation for a completely new market: custom mobile saunas. From the outset, they experienced soaring demand, and over the past three years, the couple’s Denmark-based venture Scandinavian Sauna has successfully entered Scandinavia and Japan. Now the architect-designed mobile saunas extend their presence to United Kingdom, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

– In most countries, you need a building permit to build a sauna, which makes the process too difficult for a lot of people. That’s why we’re firmly committed to the potential that there’s an untapped market for mobile saunas. And we’re taking that potential seriously from a design standpoint. As an architect, it’s in my power to design saunas that not only fulfil the technical requirements, such as heat distribution and multi-level seating, but also deliver comfort and a design imbued with materials and aesthetics that honour nature and our Scandinavian design heritage, says Jakob Gate, architect, and founder of Scandinavian Sauna. He adds:

– United Kingdom is the ideal match for us. We feel that United Kingdom is the perfect place to match with customers who can appreciate the immense amount of hard work that goes into designing and developing our product. United Kingdom represents functionality, meticulousness, and top-notch quality, which goes hand-in-hand with our aspirations for our design and product.

Passion and Exclusivity Paves the Way to Success

After many years working as architects and project managers with prominent firms in London’s commercial design industry, Jakob Gate and Cecilie Wang felt something new needed to happen. Following a two-year stint in the Philippines, where they worked for charities and designed and built educational centres for children, they returned to the chill of Scandinavia. Sauna visits healed their yearning for a return to the heat, and drawing on their expertise from their architect firm, Native Narrative, Scandinavian Sauna was born.

– We have dedicated countless hours studying the anatomy and details of saunas, aiming to optimize the design for best possible technical and design effect. We never produce in bulk. Every sauna is meticulously constructed, and we continuously evolve our approach with every project to update and refine our design. It’s like the auto industry, where they update the design every year. Except we have the opportunity to update our design with every model, says Jakob Gate.

With a 50 percent increase in revenue from the preceding year, the company’s growth has underscored the market’s newfound readiness for mobile saunas. That’s why they now turn their focus towards United Kingdom.

– Since our inception four years ago, sales have only increased despite minimal marketing and our product launch coinciding with the pandemic. Clients reach out to us due to word-of-mouth about our mobile solution. Many say they have hesitated to invest in a sauna exactly because the optimal solution wasn’t available. Since day one, we have been committed to incorporating numerous design and construction enhancements, and this dedication has positioned us where we are today.