Author Archives: karlis

Skipoli.fi
We’ve seen an actual up-in-the-air sauna gondola, this one is a sauna made from a gondola car on a trailer.

Skipoli ski club turned a lack of snow in 2009 into a sauna trailer. The Finnish representative of the gondola company Doppelmayr was very positive about the project and made arrangements with Austria to acquire the gondola car. Promoting Teekkarikylä and the Design Factory also helped with materials and construction.

The support structures are pressure-treated lumber, finished with with aspen
treated with parrafin oil. They managed to find a stove small enough for the spa
ce and still fit lots of sauna bathers. Since the gondola walls are all glass,
heat barrier for the stove, provide insulation, maintain a view, and have it look good from both the inside and outside. LED lighting is built into the ceiling.

The sauna was completed, but when the snow finally arrived ski trips put work on finding a suitable trailer in the background. An old decayed RV caravan trailer was found for a suitable price and the sauna lifted on with a small crane. The trailer was large enough to leave room in front for a small terrace.

Mobile saunas seem like the obvious answer to some of the questions raised by cold water surfing, and we’ve definitely thought about bringing some of our heat to the surfers on the west coast of Vancouver island. The Surf Sauna in New Hampshire is the first mobile sauna we’ve seen on the East coast, and the first built for expressedly for surfers. It’s written right on the side. I doubt the ice and snow bothered these surfers before, but with their new system they don’t have to let any choice winter waves get away.

The sauna is a classic barrel-style sauna on a trailer, with a glass door that opens directly out onto the beach. The heater is a vico-scandia gas (propane) type, which with all stainless-steel construction is well suited for ocean side use. It also has a surfboard rack.

SurfSauna.net

“As surfers who cut our teeth in cold New England waters the appeal of the surf sauna is obvious. All it took was a Makerspace and a dream-team of master craftsmen and the project morphed into reality. The tale of surf sauna predates but is intertwined with the formation of Port City Makerspace in Portsmouth New Hampshire. A tight knit group of surfers and craftsmen spent many years tossing the idea around before making the first cut into western red cedar. Sailors all, adventurers by nature; the surf sauna team is made up of surfers who hang around the makerspace and love making it happen.”

korpikorsu.fi
Up in the North of Finland you’ll find a wilderness adventure lodge with an old Soviet Zil-157 converted into a large mobile sauna. Korpi Korsu also have a large traditional smoke (savu) sauna to complement their activities which include a historical Winter War (WWII) Finnish partisan experience, complete vintage skiing equipment, compass orienteering and morose Russian border guards enactors.

The moving steam is built with a selection of small logs for cladding, for a very traditional and unique look. They operate the sauna while on the road, although we’re not sure if there’s seatbelts on the sauna benches. It’s usually found up north near Laakajärvi around Salminen lake, but it has occasionally been spotted in Helsinki.

In Russia there’s a lot of converted military truck banyas, often GAZ-66 and ZIL-131. This is the only mobile sauna we’ve seen on a Zil-157, although we wouldn’t be surprised to see others.

This Estonian sauna was built in a 1984 Scania passenger bus and features a wood-fired stove, internal shower room, toilet and a small kitchen. The front of the bus incorporates an entertainment lounge with seating for 12. Additional parts of the OSI setup include a 5x8m popup tent and a 6-person hot tub.

The OFI sauna bus was featured in the Amazing Race season 15, episode 9, where competitors in this reality TV show were directed to take a sweat in the bus.

We like the SE crew. A simple sauna on a trailer. Big bucket for serious cold-shower action. They set up on the ocean with a sound system and a bunch of DJs. They set up at the Roskilde music festival. They are also the only mobile sauna we know so far in Denmark.

saunaeksperimentet.wordpress.com

The mobile sauna was built as part of a Social – cultural performance project created by seven students from Roskilde University in the spring of 2009. The project was a collaboration between Youth Secretariat, culture and leisure department and Zodiac Theatre in Næstved.

The wood-fired sauna vehicle can accommodate up to 12 guests at a time and features a cold shower bucket mounted outside the sauna.

The sauna was built by 7 people in the week leading up to Easter. Subsequently, the sauna has been taken out to many events testing the project sauna’s proficiency as a hub for local communities. The project aimed to create relationships based on culture, health, dialogue, interpersonal relationships while strengthening local identity.

Below you can see a short video from the event SAUNA REPUBLIC Naestved port d.3 April.

There’s a few commercial sauna tents available, this one is particularly interesting because it can be ordered with a trailer that tows perfectly behind a bike, wheeled by hand, or carried as a backpack into all sorts of otherwise hard-to-reach places. It includes a small window and a folding woodstove. It has been exhibited at the Teuva mobile sauna festival.

Elmo Vermijs in Tilberg, Netherlands has developed a popup tent trailer sauna as an autonomous art project with the intention of bringing together people in public places to enjoy a sauna session. We understand completely.

Studio Elmo Vermijs
info@elmovermijs.com
+31 (0)6 43583291
www.elmovermijs.com