About us

Dedication to the Lifestyle

Founded in 2019 by architect Jakob Gate and project leader Cecilie Wang, Scandinavian Sauna takes pride in meticulous attention to detail throughout the entire design process - from designing, prototyping, and detail tweaking to delivering mobile saunas to private customers and business partners all over the EU and Japan.

We believe that the heat and the cold are both powerful healers and our mission is to help people live happier, healthier, more balanced lives by providing the ultimate sauna experience for them to release stress, relax and rejuvenate.

This is reflected in our design and materials choices; while our saunas are 100% fully mobile, we never compromise in the name of mobility.

Product Development & Production

By closely listening to our clients' feedback from our very first sauna build, we've learnt a lot and made a lot of changes. We think of our sauna production in similar terms to the car industry where every year an improved model is released. The only difference being that we do not wait a year and always update our designs, or make bespoke modifications at each new production opportunity. 

The excellent craftsmen in our Polish workshop have built over 1600 bespoke saunas over a 17 year period and can tap into a wealth of practical knowledge. We believe construction experience is important and makes a fundamental difference to the outcome of the product.

The fact that our carpenters build the same (or very similar) structures over and over again, results in a higher quality product compared to a sauna built by a workshop making this type of sauna for the first time. 

Historical Inspirations

The first saunas were most likely built as a tool for survival in the harsh Scandinavian climate, not primarily as a way to experience pleasure. We enjoy this utilitarian approach and implement it ourselves in our design process. Our aim was to make a highly practical mobile building that sits comfortably both in nature and around other buildings - both modern and traditional Scandinavian architecture.

You can park a Scandinavian Sauna next to an agricultural shed, or barn and it does not look out of place. The same goes for contemporary crisp and minimal Scandinavian houses.

We put a lot of trust in simplicity, but not just in terms of aesthetics, making it straightforward to use is also very important for us.

Simplicity - Design Ethos

While it can be tempting to add functionality, anything that is not directly adding to your experience of enjoying heat in nature, is not included. We think of the sauna as a practical tool that people also hopefully find beautiful. We didn't want the architecture to take center stage or appear dominating in any way. It's a space as much for looking inwards as out, and for enjoying nature in a way that you cannot do without a Scandinavian Sauna. We started looking at other mobile saunas such as barrel saunas and improved some of the design flaws on the barrel such as an oven obstructing the view, lack of level seating, lack of a changing room, low head height, lazy integration with the trailer etc.

For us it was essential to achieve a mobile sauna that is as good as the permanent saunas people have built throughout history in Scandinavia and elsewhere and not make any compromises in the name of mobility. 

We are very proud of the results. Some of our customers have decided to take the trailer off and use our mobile saunas as permanent buildings with the option of taking it on the road once in a while if the opportunity or need should present itself.

Founders’ Background

We are partners in life as well as in practice and spent many years working as an architect (Jakob) and as a project manager (Cecilie) for leading firms in London's commercial design industry. Eventually, we felt unfulfilled and in 2016 left to support NGOs and charity organisations in the rural Philippines and set up our architecture studio Native Narrative. 

We lived in low socio-economic communities for two years and designed & built four Learning Centers for Children as well as other passion projects for the local government. Eventually, we ran out of money as the work we did in the Philippines was mostly pro-bono. As we returned to Scandinavia in October 2018, we felt cold and ill and just made it through the winter thanks to saunas. 

We both grew up with saunas in Denmark and Sweden and have very fond memories of using them with family and friends. After spending many years in the UK and in Asia it was great to reconnect with this aspect of our native cultures. As a result, we started researching the history and culture of saunas and discovered that regular sauna bathing has been shown to have many positive health effects.

As we ourselves have lost loved ones to heart failure, learning about the health benefits of saunas was very encouraging. So much so, that we decided to use our skills gained through our architecture practice Native Narrative to design the perfect mobile sauna. 

Our first client was a collective of winter bathing enthusiasts in Denmark and we had many meetings with them and essentially designed a sauna according to their needs. Since then we have learned a lot and many many aspects have been replaced or modified. The result is a product that after two years of heavy commercial use was described by one of our customers as “a masterpiece of construction and attention to detail”. 

We hope that you will enjoy your Scandinavian Sauna as much as we do and that you will develop a beautiful routine on your way to better health and less stress.