This sauna was created as a weekend DIY project, born from our decision to give old materials a second chance. Pallets, wooden sleepers, cement-bonded particle boards, sheep wool, and other second-hand treasures—every piece used in this sauna has its own story, now forming part of a functional whole.

This is what happens when you scroll through second-hand websites and when you love collecting materials that might still come in handy. It might sound like hoarding, but when you’re also an architect, you suddenly have a lot of great stuff to build with. And that’s exactly how we sometimes spend our free weekends as architects.
The concept of the upcycled sauna came together gradually: finding the right place, using the collected materials, satisfying the need for a sauna, and the desire to build something with our own hands instead of just clicking and answering emails.
We had the location—a large garden in the city. We had a few wooden sleepers, a pile of planks and beams, a few cement-bonded particle boards, and some leftover mineral wool. We also found super affordable second-hand pallets with a 1x1 m module. From these basics, we created a simple sauna concept and gradually gathered more materials—leftovers from friends and other construction projects.
The foundation is made of wooden sleepers, and the load-bearing structure is built from wooden pallets. The floor was filled with mineral wool and covered with cement-bonded particle boards. The floor’s individual parts weren’t made from single pieces—we pieced it together from whatever was available. The pallets were connected with new hardware—plates and brackets. The roof structure is made from leftover beams and pallets, with a slight slope for rainwater drainage.
The most enjoyable part of the construction was insulating the structure with raw sheep wool, which we acquired very affordably from a local shepherd. We manually cleaned the wool of the largest residues left by its previous “inhabitants” (sheep) and stuffed it into the walls and ceiling structure. The inner insulation is covered with mesh and reflective foil, while the exterior is protected by facade foil.
The final interior surface was made from planks, while cement-bonded particle boards were used behind the stove for better heat retention. The exterior layer consists of a wooden grid made from leftover battens and second-hand corrugated fiberglass panels, which were attached to the grid and overlapped like scales. In the corners, we bent the panels into curves to give the structure a softer appearance.
The cooling pool was the final touch. We got an old mining cart from friends for a haul, which we repaired and painted gold to match the sauna and bring contrasting symbolism - the cart was originally used for coal mining.