[DES!GN TALK!] SHIBUYA SAUNAS: Brand Sells Recovery in the City 02

9월 10일

8분 분량

SHIBUYA SAUNAS: Designing the Experience of Totonou

Hello, I’m Hyojae Kim, a designer based in Seoul.

To understand Shibuya SAUNAS, we first need to talk about one of the most important words in contemporary Japanese sauna culture: “totonou.” The body moves through heat and cold, thoughts gradually become simpler, and the senses begin to return to balance. This is also the appeal of sauna culture that the manga Sado introduced to a wider audience. A sauna is not simply a facility for sweating. It can become a ritual through which people living in the city reconnect with their own bodies and senses. The spatial experience of Shibuya SAUNAS feels almost as though this idea of totonou has been divided into a series of rooms, each designed to guide the body toward a different sensory state.

Zoning plan of Shibuya SAUNAS

A Floor Plan Built Around Sensory Choice

In Korea, the word “sauna” often brings to mind the large communal areas and resting spaces of a traditional jjimjilbang. The plan of Shibuya SAUNAS, by contrast, feels much denser and more deliberate. Multiple sauna rooms, cold baths, locker areas, and resting spaces are arranged within a relatively compact footprint, yet the space never feels overly complicated. What impressed me was how clearly each area functions almost like an individual piece of content. There is very little unnecessary dead space, and the overall plan remains restrained and efficient.

This is not a facility built around one sauna room and one cold bath. Instead, sauna rooms with distinctly different characters—MUSTA, HARMAA, VIHTA, KELO, TEETÄ, TUULI, SOUND, and BED—are connected with cold baths such as MATALA and SYVÄ. Visitors are able to choose their own sensory sequence depending on how they feel that day. They can awaken the body with intense heat, lower the level of stimulation in a quieter room, lie down and surrender their weight, or spend longer periods resting between cold water and outdoor air. What makes the plan interesting is that the sauna is not treated as a single facility, but as a collection of different experiences designed to regulate the condition of the body.

MUSTA — A Room That Awakens the Body in Darkness

MUSTA is a sauna defined by its dark atmosphere, as its name suggests. Darkness plays an important role in sauna design because when visual information is reduced, attention naturally shifts toward the body. The heat of the air, the scent of wood, the warmth against the skin, and the rhythm of breathing all become more distinct. Rather than presenting a dramatic visual scene, MUSTA feels like a room designed to let the body read the space before the eyes do. For people exposed to constant visual stimulation in the city, a dark room like this can become a surprisingly powerful moment of transition.

HARMAA — Finding Balance in Grey

HARMAA means “grey” in Finnish. Grey does not demand attention through strong emotion or decoration. Instead, it creates a calm and neutral atmosphere. Within a sauna, this kind of mid-tone environment can produce an experience that feels neither overly tense nor excessively stimulating.

One of the most interesting aspects of Shibuya SAUNAS is that its rooms are not differentiated simply by temperature. Color, brightness, atmosphere, and even the way the body sits or rests are subtly varied, allowing visitors to choose between different sensory conditions. HARMAA can be read as one of the rooms that establishes a more stable and balanced rhythm within that sequence.

KELO — A Room Remembered Through the Texture of Wood

KELO generally refers to an old pine tree that has dried naturally while still standing. In a sauna, wood is much more than a finishing material. It is something the body touches directly, and a material that absorbs heat and carries scent. Its softness, warmth, and aged texture create an experience that ceramic tile or metal simply cannot reproduce.

A room named KELO can therefore be understood as a sauna built around the physical presence and materiality of wood. In good sauna design, materials are often remembered by the body more deeply than they are remembered as visual decoration.

TEETÄ — A Sauna with the Slowness of Tea

TEETÄ is associated with tea. Even the name suggests a slower and more delicate experience rather than one defined primarily by intense heat. A good sauna does not necessarily need to be extremely hot or aggressive. Some rooms push the body, while others slowly open it. Breathing becomes longer, fragrance spreads gently through the air, and thoughts begin to slow down.

TEETÄ allows the sauna to be interpreted almost like a quiet tea ritual. Rather than a room where heat must be endured, it feels closer to a space that gradually warms the senses.

SOUND — Immersion Through Sound

As its name suggests, SOUND places auditory experience at the center of the sauna. Although sauna design is largely driven by bodily sensation rather than vision, sound can have an equally powerful influence. The sound of falling water, the movement of heat, low-frequency music, or subtle vibrations can affect the rhythm of breathing and the way the body perceives the space.

SOUND expands the sauna experience beyond temperature and into the auditory realm. Sound is often treated as a secondary element in spatial design, but within wellness environments it can become extremely important. When sound is carefully designed, people can become immersed more quickly and detach more easily from the sensory rhythm of everyday life.

BED — Recovery Through Lying Down

As the name suggests, BED is a sauna designed to be experienced while lying down. Most saunas assume a seated posture, but lying down creates a completely different relationship between the body and the room. Muscular tension decreases, the gaze naturally shifts toward the ceiling, and the user becomes more passive.

Instead of enduring the sauna, the experience becomes closer to allowing the sauna to take over the body. This approach aligns closely with the broader message of recovery behind the SAUNAS brand. For an urban sauna, the ultimate objective is not constant stimulation, but helping the body return to a comfortable and balanced state.

MATALA and SYVÄ — Even Cold Water Becomes a Sensory Choice

The cold baths at Shibuya SAUNAS include MATALA and SYVÄ. MATALA means “shallow,” while SYVÄ means “deep.” Even the cold bath is not treated simply as a single pool of cold water. Different depths and body positions create different physical experiences.

A shallow cold bath offers a relatively gentle transition of the senses, while a deeper bath surrounds more of the body and can create a stronger sensation of reset. Within the sauna sequence, the cold bath is not simply a supporting facility. It is a critical device that completely changes the sensory state created by the heat, and the quality of that cold-water experience directly affects the quality of the rest that follows.

TUULI — Circulating the Senses Like Wind

TUULI is connected to the Finnish word for “wind.” In a sauna, wind is more than simply the movement of air. It distributes heat across the body, influences the rhythm of breathing, and circulates sensation throughout the room.

TUULI can be read not as a room that overwhelms the body with intense heat, but as one that warms it more lightly through airflow and breathing. Rather than experiencing heat as a static mass, the sensation moves around the body almost like wind. This creates an important intermediate point within the overall sauna journey. Between rooms of intense heat and moments of deep rest, TUULI gives visitors another way to adjust the rhythm according to their physical condition. It demonstrates how Shibuya SAUNAS differentiates its rooms not only through temperature, but also through air, breathing, and movement.

VIHTA — Awakening the Body Through Scent and Touch

VIHTA refers to a bundle of birch branches traditionally used in Finnish sauna culture. In a sauna, vihta is not merely a decorative object. In the heat, the branches release their natural fragrance, and they can be lightly brushed or tapped against the body to stimulate circulation and awaken the skin.

Even through its name alone, VIHTA suggests that sauna can extend beyond temperature into an experience of scent and touch. Hot air, the scent of timber, the fragrance of plants, and the sensation of something touching the skin all add another layer to the experience. When these elements come together, the sauna begins to feel less like simply sweating and more like a ritual for reactivating the body. What makes Shibuya SAUNAS particularly interesting is the way each sauna room is given its own sensory identity and narrative. VIHTA expands the path toward totonou through the smell of nature and the tactile awareness of the body.

Outdoor Rest — Where Totonou Is Completed

After the sauna and cold bath, perhaps the most important stage is actually rest. Many people naturally focus on the sauna room itself, but the sensation of totonou is often completed during the resting period. After the body has moved through heat and cold, breathing slows and the senses gradually settle.

This is why I found it particularly interesting that Shibuya SAUNAS treats outdoor-air bathing as such an important part of the experience despite being located in the middle of the city. To feel the outside air and allow the body to cool in the heart of busy Shibuya creates an unusual contrast. It does not mean escaping the city altogether. Instead, it allows you to temporarily experience a different rhythm within the city itself. A good sauna is not simply about creating a good hot room. It is also about designing the conditions for good rest.

Design That Does Not Interrupt Totonou

One of the most memorable things about Shibuya SAUNAS is how little the design tries to assert itself. Many contemporary commercial spaces are designed around visually dramatic moments that encourage people to take photographs. In a sauna, however, excessive visual direction can actually interfere with the sensory experience.

Here, the design seems to take a step back. Rather than overwhelming the user, it creates conditions that allow greater attention to the body. Each sauna room has its own character, yet all of them ultimately contribute to the same sequence: warming the body, awakening the senses, slowing the breath, and returning to a more balanced state.

The choice of Shibuya as a location is equally important. The contrast between one of Tokyo’s fastest urban environments and a space dedicated to recovery makes the brand proposition much clearer. At the same time, its location allows people to incorporate the sauna into everyday urban routines—after work, before meeting someone, or even between destinations while traveling. From a business perspective, that accessibility is a powerful advantage.

Ultimately, Shibuya SAUNAS is a compelling example of how spatial atmosphere and location strategy can reinforce one another. Creating a moment in which people can stop within an otherwise fast-moving city—that, to me, is the flow of totonou that this space is designed to create.

In the next article, I will look at Shibuya SAUNAS from a business perspective, examining how post-sauna dwell time, F&B, and workspace programs can extend the experience and translate into additional revenue.

Hyojae Kim

Designer / KHJO