Small in size, big in its impact
Architect Adelle Sanders on designing Yutori Saunna - a mobile sauna that carries you somewhere else entirely.
The message was typically Louis. "We have a little project we are wanting to launch, love to catch up." Adelle Sanders didn't ask for details. She just said yes. She usually does when Louis Smith is involved.
When they met, it was one of the stormiest days of the year. They sat at the golf club as wild weather moved across the fairway through enormous windows — the kind of afternoon that makes you feel very aware of being indoors, of being sheltered. For Adelle, the energy of that meeting told her everything she needed to know.
“I was sure that although the sauna is small in size, it was going to be big in its impact.”
Tom Robinson and Louis Smith came to the project with more than an idea; they brought supplier relationships, a strong aesthetic direction, and an existing flatbed trailer. That last detail anchored everything. The trailer's dimensions became the governing logic of the design, shaping every decision from structure to cladding. Rather than working against those limits, Adelle welcomed them. “Constraints are the art of architecture. Turning what initially seems difficult into something beautiful and functional is what we are here for”, she shared.
Her one challenge to Tom and Louis was aesthetic. The reference images they'd brought were beautiful, but she could see they'd be difficult to execute at this scale. "It became clear that it needed to be less residential and more like an object." Something self-contained. Something you encounter rather than enter.
The answer came through material. Abodo's timber shingles, made from offcuts recovered from their own weatherboard production, allowed Adelle to wrap the entire structure in a single surface. No breaks, no transitions, just one continuous skin. It's this wholeness, she believes, that gives the sauna its quiet elegance. Tom and Louis deepened that integrity by honouring a fallen Macrocarpa: they milled it themselves, using it for the structural framing and interior linings. Dargaville Aluminium supplied the windows; Huum, the wood-fired stove; Terra Lana, the insulation within the walls and roof.
The result has what Adelle calls "a cabin-in-the-woods vibe", one that would feel at home in a wide range of natural settings, and deliberately less so in an urban one. That tension is part of the point. "That jarring contrast is probably exactly what a lot of stressed city dwellers need. It can carry you somewhere else entirely, in your mind."
“People will come for the health benefits — but what they will leave with runs much deeper.”
Because what happens inside the sauna matters as much as how it looks from the outside. Saunas have always been places for honest conversation; the heat strips away the performative, and something more real takes its place. "People will come for the health benefits," Adelle says, "but what they will leave with runs much deeper." Connection, she means. The kind that forms in close quarters, without distraction.
“Saunas are traditionally places for authentic conversation. Through this closeness, real connections form. It is a primal human need.”
For Adelle, whose practice at Studio Adelle Sanders Architects is built around spaces that feel calm, intentional, and grounded in the lives of the people who use them, Yutori Sauna is a project that lands close to home, in more ways than one. She's based in Mangawhai, the same town this sauna will serve. "I am really proud," she says, "to be part of a project that genuinely serves Mangawhai."