fold

Architecture and interiors, Copenhagen.

Work Cultural

The Bathing House

Sandvig, Bornholm. 2025. Built.

A small pitched-roof sauna clad in pale vertical boards, raised on thin legs over a granite shore, with a ladder down to the water.

The hot sauna from the rocks at low water. The ladder is the only way into the sea.

The association had raised enough money for one building and wanted to keep the shoreline open. We split the programme into a low changing hall on the rock and a timber sauna lifted on piles, so that at high water the sea runs under it.

Clay model of The Bathing House, approach view. The building as you arrive, with its roof on and the site around it.

Views

The building as you arrive, with its roof on and the site around it.

Describe the model in words

A white clay model of The Bathing House, 16.2 by 9 metres on plan, standing on its site. It has 4 views: approach, plan, section and light. Scrolling the text moves the camera between them, and the Views buttons do the same.

  • Approach. The building as you arrive, with its roof on and the site around it. Marked in this view: Changing hall, Saunas on piles.
  • Plan. The roof lifted away and the camera overhead, to read the rooms and how they connect. Marked in this view: Wash room, Cold pool.
  • Section. The building cut open from the south, to show heights, floors and the roof. Marked in this view: Piles into the granite, Roof rises from 2.8 to 4.2 m.
  • Light. The low sun entering through the glass, seen from inside the cut. Marked in this view: Slot of daylight.

Approach

Visitors come along the coastal path from the harbour and meet the changing hall first. It is a single storey of board-on-board pine, and it sits behind a rise in the granite so that, from the water, it reads as part of the shore.

The saunas are the part people photograph, but they are small and set back. We spent more time on the ladder, which is stainless steel, 38 centimetres wide and shaped to be gripped in wet hands.

Plan

A bathing house works as a loop: undress, wash, sauna, water, sauna again, dress. We drew the plan as that loop, with the wash room in the middle so everyone passes through it twice and nobody crosses a wet floor in socks.

The two saunas are on the seaward side, one hot and one steam. A shared terrace joins them to the cold pool, which is cut into the rock and filled with filtered sea water.

Section

The hall has a single-pitch roof that rises toward the sea from 2.8 to 4.2 metres. That gives the changing room a low, close ceiling and the sauna terrace a taller, brighter one.

The saunas stand on eight steel-capped pine piles drilled 1.5 metres into the granite. The rock was not blasted or levelled anywhere on the site.

Light

The hot sauna has no window. A narrow slot at floor level lets in a line of daylight, and the lamps are hidden under the benches. After ten minutes the eyes adjust, and the sea is visible through the slot as a horizontal stripe.

The cold pool is the opposite: a fully glazed end wall and a ceiling painted the colour of the water.

How it runs

The association has 640 members and opens the house on a rota. The heating is a wood-fired stove in each sauna and the building has no other fossil fuel. A small kiosk sells coffee and towels, and a key box next to the door lets members in before the kiosk opens.

  • A long indoor pool with still, dark water reflecting a glazed end wall and the trees outside, with loungers along both sides.
    The cold pool is 12 metres long and 1.4 metres deep. The glass end faces the wood behind the shore.
  • The inside corner of a sauna with warm timber walls, a stepped bench and a strip of light under the upper bench.
    The hot sauna holds twelve. The only light sits under the benches, so the room has no glare.
  • A copper bucket and wooden ladle on a wide timber bench against a pale board wall, with a wall-mounted flue pipe behind.
    The upper bench is a single 90 mm plank of Danish pine, planed and left untreated.

Drawings

Plan of The Bathing House Plan at floor level, with the sea to the east. Scale 1 to 100. Rooms: Entry and kiosk, Changing, Wash room, Hot sauna, Steam sauna, Terrace and cold pool. Entry and kiosk 16 m² Changing 20 m² Wash room 27 m² Hot sauna 20 m² Steam sauna 20 m² Terrace and cold pool 42 m² 16.2 m 9 m 5 m N
Plan at floor level, with the sea to the east. Scale 1 to 100.
Cross section of The Bathing House Cross section through the hall and wash room, looking north. Scale 1 to 100. The roof is a single slope, with the eave at 2.8 metres and the highest point at 4.2 metres. Levels: Floor level, Upper sauna bench. Floor level 0 m Upper sauna bench 1.1 m Span 9 m Eave 2.8 m Ridge 4.2 m
Cross section through the hall and wash room, looking north. Scale 1 to 100.

Materials

What the building is made of, where each material is used, and who supplied it.

  • Close photograph of pale oak veneer with a fine straight grain.

    Oak

    Changing room benches and the ladder handrail

    Ravnkilde Sawmill

  • Close photograph of a warm beige plastered wall with a soft hand-finished texture.

    Lime plaster

    Wash room walls, three coats

    Skovlunde Kalk

  • Close photograph of terrazzo tiles, with small chips of stone set in a pale binder.

    Terrazzo

    Wash room floor and cold pool edge

    Gram Terrazzo

  • Close photograph of corrugated zinc sheet, grey with a soft sheen.

    Zinc

    Sauna roof and flashings

    Vesterhav Zink

  • Close photograph of a brushed brass surface in a muted gold tone.

    Brass

    Door pulls and stove fittings

    Brøndum Messing

Credits

Architect
Fold
Interiors
Freja Lindqvist
Structure
Brink og Lund Rådgivende Ingeniører
Builder
Havnefront Entreprise
Sauna stoves
Ildsted Værksted
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