Making Places Better: Sauna Edition
Sweat It Out...Shake It Off
Welcome to Making Places Better: The Sauna Edition.
My love of saunas and hot tubs began in Iceland. I first attended Iceland Airwaves in 2006 (as a music journalist) and discovered the local municipal baths as a cheaper alternative to the touristic Blue Lagoon.
There are saunas alongside the lobster pots (what we call hot tubs at varying degrees). After a long evening of listening to music around Reykjavik, they offered respite and rejuvenation. While I don’t get to them often, I love them. I fondly remember sweating in the Faroe Islands, Finland, Sweden, and many hotels worldwide. Below is one of the nicest I’ve experienced in Nuuk, Greenland.
I am clearly not the only one. Now, saunas are becoming unique placemaking activations in London. Since the opening of the Olympic Park in London, a small patch of land in Newham, next to Stratford International Rail Station, has been empty. The vacant rectangular strip of land was covered by hoardings and dwarfed by a decade of development, from the Manhattan Loft Hotel to the conversion of the Olympic flats into homes. But that changed in January when a non-profit community sauna opened on-site. An empty patch of land was transformed into a community asset.
According to The Guardian, saunas are becoming relatively inexpensive community meeting places. This quote from Charlie Duckworth, one of the folks behind the project, says it all:
“The sauna provides a similar function to alcohol in a way…It lowers inhibition. It makes you feel comfortable and chatty and, hopefully, in a place that’s social and friendly. But not in a sexualised or intoxicating way.”
The cost ranges from £8 to £15, depending on peak time. This is the second site to open in the past year, with one in Hackney Wick opening in 2023 in a disused car park.
I know saunas are not for everyone (there are clearly issues with stripping down and going into a sweaty box with strangers), but I think they are a great tool in making places better. As a temporary use on an empty patch of land that, in theory, serves the entire community, they are a great tool. This is not limited to the U.K., although it is more or less limited to colder spaces. I saw a similar initiative in Vilnius, Lithuania, where a pop-up sauna was installed in a disused former prison-turned-cultural center at Lukiski Prison. There is even a sauna conference this week in London.
If we - collectively - aim to develop and foster cities that function for everyone, how we optimise vacant land (so it is used for something rather than land banked) is a challenge. At the same time, cities that are built around cars often have excess car parking space, especially when initiatives to promote cleaner modes of transport are being rolled out. Car parks can become many things, and this is a good example.
No matter what, we have to increase density—as more of us will need to live together in less space—and do it respectfully. I get putting saunas on disused or vacant land may be niche and may not work everywhere, but in the UK, where folks are drinking and going out less, finding ways to congregate outside of traditional wet-led premises safely and doing so in a way that (again, in theory) caters to the masses is welcome. And it is good for us.
I’m looking forward to the next plunge.
(Thanks for reading, as always. All comments are welcome, and for those who wish to support my writing, all proceeds are donated to the Center for Music Ecosystems.)