£32 Gets You Aboard This Floating Wood-Fired Sauna in London

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Project Details:

Location: London, United Kingdom

Designer: Badweather

Footprint: 500 square feet

Photographer: Kaye Song / @kaye.song

From the Designer: "Soak is a traveling bathhouse designed by architecture studio Badweather, set within a restored 56-foot-wide beam canal boat. Operating entirely off-grid, it combines sauna and cold plunge facilities into a floating wellness space that moves through London’s historic waterway network, mooring in a new location every two weeks. Part bathhouse, part piece of floating architecture, Soak explores what communal wellness infrastructure can be when it is freed from fixed foundations and instead designed for mobility, adaptability, and a deep connection to water. The project was cofounded by childhood best friends Riccardo Codacci-Pisanelli, a chef and former restaurateur, and Leo Sixsmith, cofounder of Badweather.

"Codacci-Pisanelli and Sixsmith came to communal bathing following periods of grief and personal recalibration. What began as a collective practice of gathering and resting among friends gradually became the basis for Soak: a social wellness space combining the therapeutic rituals of sauna culture with a resolved architectural sensibility and elevated hospitality experience.

"The boat was acquired in May 2025 in near-derelict condition. Rotten floors, extensive water damage and a hull requiring complete restoration meant the project began with a full strip-out before a deep restoration and recoating of the steel hull. From there, a team of around 40 collaborators led by Sixsmith and Codacci-Pisanelli, including plumbers, electricians, fabricators, carpenters, and battery specialists, undertook its transformation. The sleek interior touches on Badweather’s typical approach: utilitarian and industrial components—threaded rod, T-brackets and chrome-plated copper plumbing—make up details with sculptural precision. The aesthetic resists preciousness while being highly resolved.

"Soak is structured for up to 12 people, combining a sauna, two cold plunge pools, showers, changing space, and a small bar. Given the constraints of the steel hull, with its internal struts dictating where walls, windows, and openings could fall, the interior layout resolved itself into a single linear sequence. Guests move from a warm, low-lit entry space set with dark stained marine plywood into a bright, airy cold plunge and shower room before arriving at the sauna itself.

"Within the sauna, custom aluminum-framed floating benches are suspended within the tapered hull. The benches hover above the floor, echoing the feeling of floating on water. The sauna is lined in thermally treated aspen and alder, selected for their durability under heat and humidity as much as for their tone and grain. Across the boat, enlarged portholes rework original 11-inch apertures into 18- and 32-inch openings. Soak’s four colors—fire red, cold blue, lavender, and earth brown—correspond to an element of the bathing experience and also act as navigational marker. At the bow, a former steel door has been replaced with a picture window aperture that pulls daylight deep into the interior, shifting the perception of scale of the narrow hull.

"Soak operates without connection to water, electricity, or sewage infrastructure. Canal water is drawn in and passed through six stages of filtration and UV treatment before being stored in a fabricated bow tank. A reverse osmosis system produces drinking water, later re-mineralized with calcium, magnesium, and potassium, supplying both guests and the on-board café offering. Electricity is generated via solar panels, while heat is provided by a woodfired stove and supported by a custom battery stack housed within the vessel. Together, the systems allow the project to operate as a self-sufficient floating environment."