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Connection, relaxation, purification. Soak is an off-grid bathhouse that immerses guests into a tranquil atmosphere on London’s historic canals.
We love Scandinavian saunas and all they represent: a ritual of cleansing and relaxation, often completed in spaces deeply connected to nature. Soak offers a new take on the traditional sauna. A project created in a partnership between childhood best friends Riccardo Codacci-Pisanelli, chef and former restaurateur, and Leo Sixsmith, co-founder of architecture studio badweather, this floating bathhouse brings the concept of communal wellness spaces to an unexpected place: London’s historic waterways.
Completed by badweather, Soak has an industrial-style interior with spaces deliberately designed to provide a shifting sensory experience. The project began with the careful restoration and redesign of an almost dilapidated widebeam canal boat. After stripping the boat, the team repaired extensive water damage, replaced the floors and enlarged the circular openings to both bring in more light inside the bathhouse and to connect guests to nature.
“Most of badweather’s projects have existed in counter-cultural spaces and nightlife, which have really been about how people gather and build relationships. The materiality of our work is usually quite industrial, very metallic, using standardised building components, which is perhaps in contrast to people’s usual experience of a sauna or Scandinavian design. What has carried through into SOAK is how we’ve used those everyday materials in ways that feel unexpectedly ethereal, delicate and ultimately beautiful,” says Leo Sixsmith.
Soak welcomes guests with a warm entrance area finished with a dark stained marine plywood that sets a cozy mood. From there, they enter the wet room, intentionally designed with an almost clinical aesthetic. This area features custom cold plunge pools and showers as well as a large skylight. Going deeper still, guests find the sauna which boasts custom aluminum-framed benches that seem to float above the floor, and thermally-treated Alder and Aspen wood that give the space exceptional warmth and character. Color accents on the enlarged portholes change depending on the area, corresponding to different bathing experiences.
“It’s bringing something of the countryside into London. One of the biggest pulls for me is the connection to water and nature, it helps you slow down, it’s inherently calming, and you don’t really get that in the city. SOAK is about leveraging what we’ve got here on the canal for that same purpose,” says Riccardo Codacci-Pisanelli.
Soak is entirely off-grid and has complex water filtration and reverse osmosis systems as well as solar panels, a custom battery stack, and a wood-fired stove. The bathhouse can accommodate up to 12 people at a time, and it’s now open to bookings. If you’re in London and thinking about dropping by for a session of deep relaxation on this piece of floating architecture, keep in mind that Soak moors in a different location every two weeks. Photography© Kaye Song, Illias Terilinck, Richard Round-Turner.
