EFFE’s Cabanon outdoor sauna: Turning up the heat in the garden

For EFFE, Rodolfo Dordoni has developed the Le Corbusier-inspired Cabanon sauna for outdoor use – combining Finnish style with technical know-how and a pinch of nostalgia...

Deur EFFE PERFECT WELLNESS en Emma Moore vir

EFFE PERFECT WELLNESS

Maart 20, 2023 | 11:00 pm CUT

Cabanon takes its outdoor concept from Finnish sauna traditions, which typically combine heat therapy with a cold dip, while formal inspiration comes from Le Corbusier’s log cabin of the same name

EFFE PERFECT WELLNESS

Cabanon

Where do you like to sauna? Pandemic confinement has given us confidence that all life can be conducted under one roof - including our mental and corporal care. We now expect wellbeing to be tackled within the structure of the home - through the integration of biophilic design and the allocation of designated spaces for wellness practices. But what if you have the mind for it but not the internal meterage? Italian wellness brand Effe have turned their attentions to finding a solution.

EFFE PERFECT WELLNESS

Cabanon

The modular sauna has an aluminium frame, toughened glass door and corrugated aluminium cladding. The deck is made from wood plastic composite boards – a tactile, hard-wearing material for outdoor use

Returning to the roots of sauna culture

The Fins have had the answer up their sleeve all along. Sauna culture arguably started in the Scandinavian nation - not in a cleverly reassigned walk-in cupboard space sandwiched between the wet room and the laundry - but in a communal heated structure situated outside. For a more familial version you don’t have to give up dreams of a dressing room or a study - just have enough outdoor space to slot it into.

“There’s nothing better for the soul than sparking up the stove and sweating it out before chilling with a cold dip and beers”

Design writer, Emma O’Kelly has spent the past few years immersing herself in the realm of heat therapy, visiting 60 saunas across Scandinavia for her book on the subject, The Power of Deep Heat (Welbeck, due to launch later this year). “In ancient Finland and the Baltics, the sauna was a pharmacy, bathhouse, birth place and death bed,” she says, highlighting that immersion in nature and icy water is traditionally as much a part of the process as the heat therapy itself.

EFFE PERFECT WELLNESS

Cabanon

Inside Cabanon is finished with heat-treated aspen and lit with Warm LEDs placed between the bench and the walls. The 8.0 kW heater cover matches the exterior corrugated cladding (here in ‘moss’)

“Today, the wilderness sauna, perched on a shore of a windswept lake, is the measure by which all others are judged,” she continues. “There’s nothing better for the soul than sparking up the stove and sweating it out before chilling with a cold dip and beers.” Or for the lack of a lake, an outdoor shower or tub.

The sauna takes to the garden

It might be seen as the opportunity for a functional folly of architecture in the arboretum, or a discreet retreat made to blend in with the herbaceous borders. But there’s no need to self-style the outdoor sauna as the concept is being embraced by experts of contemporary sauna design such as Effe. The Italian wellness brand’s most recent launch is the modular Cabanon, named for LLe Corbusiers’s famous cabin, complete with curtained deck, and designed by Rodolfo Dordoni in collaboration with Michele Angelini.

EFFE PERFECT WELLNESS

Cabanon

Cabanon, which comes in a garden and terrace version, features curtains in a technical fabric for privacy on the deck and pegs for hanging bathrobes. There is also a flexible hand-held shower hose

A modernist medley of heat treated aspen wood and corrugated aluminium, Cabanon is Finnish in style and made with all the finesse and technical expertise we have grown to expect of Italian design, along with a dose of Mediterranean nostalgia to inspire the details. “Effe came to us with the idea of a sauna that could be installed outside,” explains Dordoni.

“The Cabanon design is intended to be reminiscent not only of the shape of the hut but these feelings too”

“We could draw on our experience for the actual design but, as it was a sauna, the most natural thing was to dig deep into our memories. The first thing that came to mind were beach huts, where warmth and nudity created a feeling of freedom that today we would call wellness. The Cabanon design is intended to be reminiscent not only of the shape of the hut but these feelings too.” It comes in two models - one for gardens and one for urban terraces, both with colour options (moss, brick or cement) to allow it to integrate into its surroundings, and both featuring a hand-held shower.

Cabanon is joined in Effe’s new collection by the new Spa concept, which combines the Yoku spa, Turkish bath and shower in one product. Material choices allow it to blend into any environment

EFFE PERFECT WELLNESS

Yoku

Combining the healing power of Italian design, Scandi wellbeing and nature

For Effe, it represents a full circle for the brand, who, styled originally as Effegibi, took the Finnish sauna as their starting point 35 years ago and worked to integrate it with the ingenuity and imagination of Italian design into contemporary life. Lately this included Yoku, a version clad with shelving that would allow it to seamlessly blend, like a piece of furniture, into an interior living space. As fashions evolved Effe incorporated steam and hammam culture into its offerings, but always with designs made to bring heat therapy firmly indoors.

Sky corner, made from Canadian hemlock or heat-treated aspen and a wall of glass, shows how Effe’s material expertise and flexible ethos can blend a sauna effortlessly into interior environments, too

The journey has returned Effe’s sauna-design to the Finnish roots of its inspiration, giving us exquisitely conceived wellbeing spaces outside in nature, which we also now acknowledge is the golden ticket to sound mental health. Cabanon is the ultimate cocktail of Scandinavian salubrity and Italian design.

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