“The idea of creating a circular walk … the quality of materials, and the details involved all takes you into an experience that is beyond what a regular project of this nature offers.”
— Celia Esther Arredondo Zambrano
“For what is considerably a relatively small interior project, it’s accomplishing a tremendous amount of architectural expression and experience. It’s at once sophisticated, elegant, and refined.”
— Gordon Gill, FAIA
Location Houston
Client Sudor Sauna Studio, Katherine Garcia
Architect CONTENT Architecture
Design Team Jesse Hager, AIA, Katie Braddock-LaRose, Otilia Gonzalez-Corral, Erik Olivarez, Franco Denari, Ross Wienert, Sam McGlone, Ashlyn La Mothe
Contractor Kit Constructs
MEP Engineer AOS Engineering
Structural Engineer Fractal
Photographer Cesar Bejar
The design for Sudor Sauna Studio provides subtle transitions—spatial elements, gradations in light, and soothing materials—that gradually separate visitors from their everyday lives. Guests enter through 13-foot-tall cypress doors and encounter the front desk, a veined block of stone beneath a vaulted ceiling. They then pass through a threshold separating the daylit entry from a ring of circulation beyond. Slender cove lights illuminate the path’s edge with the corridor’s curve gradually revealing the subsequent private spaces. Vertical slats of locally sourced cypress clad the walls as well as the doors to private saunas. The wood floor ramps upward slightly, elevating each space before reaching a peak outside the bathing spaces, where guests can shower and immerse themselves in a cold plunge pool before descending back toward the daylight.