Buildner is pleased to announce the results of the Iceland Slow Sauna Competition, an international ideas competition that invited architects and designers to envision a sauna and greenhouse retreat on the shores of Lake Mývatn in North Iceland.
The Iceland Slow Sauna competition invited architects and designers to reimagine one of Iceland’s most enduring rituals through architecture. Set within the dramatic volcanic landscape of Lake Mývatn, participants were challenged to design a compact retreat that brought together a sauna and greenhouse as a unified spatial experience—one that celebrated slowness, geothermal culture, and a profound connection to nature. The brief encouraged proposals that balanced atmosphere with practicality, creating places where heat, light, vegetation, and landscape became inseparable parts of the architectural experience.
The competition attracted an great range of responses, demonstrating how a modest programme can inspire diverse architectural ideas. While each proposal approached the challenge differently, the jury consistently recognized projects that understood the sauna not simply as a building, but as a choreographed sequence of experiences. Across the strongest submissions, architecture became a medium through which transitions between warmth and cold, darkness and light, enclosure and openness, and activity and reflection were thoughtfully considered.
The competition attracted an great range of responses, demonstrating how a modest programme can inspire diverse architectural ideas. While each proposal approached the challenge differently, the jury consistently recognized projects that understood the sauna not simply as a building, but as a choreographed sequence of experiences. Across the strongest submissions, architecture became a medium through which transitions between warmth and cold, darkness and light, enclosure and openness, and activity and reflection were thoughtfully considered.
Several recurring themes emerged throughout the competition. Many participants drew inspiration from Iceland’s vernacular traditions, reinterpreting familiar forms through contemporary construction methods and material expression. Others embraced environmental performance as a primary design generator, integrating passive climatic strategies, geothermal thinking, and seasonal change directly into the architectural concept. A strong emphasis was also placed on the relationship between architecture and landscape, with proposals carefully framing views, responding to prevailing winds, and allowing the surrounding volcanic terrain to shape both spatial organization and atmosphere.
The jury was particularly impressed by projects that demonstrated restraint. Rather than relying on formal complexity, many of the most successful submissions achieved richness through proportion, sequencing, materiality, and the careful calibration of sensory experience. The strongest proposals showed that small buildings can possess extraordinary architectural depth when every threshold, surface, opening, and transition contributes to a coherent spatial narrative.
Another notable trend was the integration of ecological and restorative thinking beyond the sauna itself. Participants explored productive greenhouses, spaces for contemplation, passive environmental systems, and carefully layered interior environments that extended the ritual of bathing into a broader experience of recovery, cultivation, and wellbeing. These proposals highlighted the growing role of architecture in supporting both environmental resilience and personal restoration.
Buildner extends its thanks to each participant for their creativity, dedication, and thoughtful engagement with the competition. We also thank Slow Travel Mývatn for inspiring a brief rooted in Icelandic culture and landscape.
1st Place + Buildner Student Award
Linear Ritual
Prusha Kadir, Joel Jansson, Emil Sandström
Sweden
“We decided to participate in this architecture competition as an opportunity to challenge ourselves, think freely, and grow as future architects. As we approach graduation, it felt like the right moment to apply what we have learned in a real design context, explore ideas beyond the academic framework, and begin sharing our work with the architectural community.”
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Jury feedback summary
Linear Ritual is conceived as a compact greenhouse and sauna retreat that extends an existing homestead while responding closely to the climate and volcanic landscape of Mývatn, Iceland. The project organizes its program as a linear sequence of spaces, guiding users through arrival, greenhouse, shower, and sauna in a gradual progression that emphasizes changing temperature, humidity, light, and views. Its compact form draws from local vernacular building traditions, adapting the steep roof profile to accommodate snow, wind, and rain while creating generous interior volumes where needed. Timber construction, simple detailing, and a restrained material palette reinforce the project’s emphasis on durability, buildability, and environmental responsiveness. Together, the building balances hospitality, wellness, and food production within a modest architectural intervention rooted in its landscape.
2nd Prize
Slow Sauna – Descent into Stillness
Jeremy T Anderson, Pascal Henle
Australia
“Architecture competitions are an opportunity to collaborate, conduct research, and contribute to architectural discourse. They allow architects to explore questions that may not emerge within conventional commissions and to develop ideas that push beyond established norms. Often, speculative and unbuilt proposals become a means of revisiting, refining, and expanding upon ideas that emerge from longstanding interests and research. Even when a proposal is not realised, the concepts developed through competitions can continue to evolve, generate conversation, or find their way back into projects down the line.”
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Jury feedback summary
Rather than treating the sauna as a standalone object, Slow Sauna – Descent into Stillness frames the bathing ritual as a carefully choreographed spatial sequence. The proposal organizes the experience around a gradual descent into the landscape, where movement, enclosure, and changing environmental conditions become integral to the architecture. A translucent double-skin envelope surrounds a compact inner volume, softening the building’s presence while filtering light, weather, and views. Circular interior spaces contrast with the rectilinear outer shell, reinforcing the project’s emphasis on ritual, contemplation, and sensory transition. The restrained material palette and modular construction system contribute to a clear architectural language that balances atmospheric ambition with a rational structural framework.
3rd Prize
The fourfold ritual
Marty Ilievski, Clément Vignes
France
“We participate in architecture competitions because they offer a space for experimentation, research and reflection, beyond the constraints of a conventional commission. They allow us to test ideas, question our methods and develop architectural proposals with a strong conceptual and material focus. This competition is particularly meaningful to us because it deals with micro-architecture and the program of the sauna, two subjects that strongly resonate with our practice. We are interested in small-scale architectures where every decision becomes essential: the relationship to the site, the use of materials, the construction process, the atmosphere, and the experience of the body in space. The sauna is a program that we find especially rich, as it connects architecture to ritual, climate, materiality and sensory experience. It is a place where heat, light, texture, intimacy and landscape can come together in a very direct way. For us, this type of project is an opportunity to explore architecture at a concentrated scale, where simplicity, precision and sensitivity are fundamental.”
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Jury feedback summary
Centered around the concept of the “fourfold ritual,” this proposal reinterprets the sauna as a sequence of interconnected elemental experiences rather than a single enclosed room. A compact timber sauna forms the thermal core of the building, surrounded by a translucent greenhouse that accommodates cooling, relaxation, planting, and circulation within a unified environmental envelope.
Buildner Sustainability Award
Iceland Slow Sauna
Jordan Paul Scheuermann
United States
“Architecture competitions give designers the freedom to explore new building types, challenge conventions, and test ideas that may not be possible within the constraints of commercial projects. They create opportunities to experiment with new concepts, materials, and ways of thinking, pushing both the designer and the discipline forward.”
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Jury feedback summary
This proposal reimagines the traditional Icelandic baðstofa as a compact multi-functional retreat that integrates sauna, greenhouse, workshop, and recovery spaces within a single expressive architectural volume.
Honorable Mention
Thresholds of the Slow Ritual
Luke Yaeger Mcdonell
United States
“I participate in architecture competitions to be able to explore topics or develop skills that I am not currently otherwise working on.”
Honorable Mention
The Return
Yizhao Li, Rundong Ying, Michelle Wang
United States
“One of the reasons I enjoy architecture competitions is that they allow me to explore ideas that don’t always fit within everyday practice. They allow designers to work with greater freedom, respond to unfamiliar contexts, and place their ideas within an international architectural conversation. The Iceland Slow Sauna competition was especially interesting because the program was small, but it involved many different elements: heat, water, vegetation, weather, privacy, and landscape. Receiving an Honorable Mention was very encouraging, but I also valued the design process itself. It gave us the chance to think carefully about how such a small building could still create a rich spatial experience.”
Honorable Mention
RAUÐUR SKÁLI (Red Shelter) Lake Mývatn, North Iceland
Samuel Kearney Caplice, Patrick Doyle
Ireland
“Competitions allow us to continue an ongoing design dialogue beyond the constraints of commercial practice. They provide a space to experiment, test ideas and develop our own architectural voice. While recognition is rewarding, the process of exploring a clear idea from brief to proposal is what we value most.”
Honorable Mention
Towards the Horizon
Park Juseok
South Korea
“For me, architecture competitions are more than a way to win projects. They are opportunities to challenge my own limits, refine my thinking, and continuously develop as an architect. Competitions are also an open platform for engaging with society, cities, the media, and the public through architecture. They allow us to respond to contemporary issues, communicate ideas, and explore new possibilities for architecture and the public realm.”
Honorable Mention
Spatial Cycles Of Warmth
Ilira Salihu, Julius Maria Meier
Switzerland
“From our point of view, architecture competitions are an opportunity to step outside the routines of everyday practice and explore ideas with greater freedom. They encourage experimentation, challenge us to test our own design approach, and allow us to engage with places, cultures, and architectural questions that we might not encounter in our daily work. The Iceland Slow Sauna competition was particularly appealing because of its unique setting and intimate scale, inviting a thoughtful response to both landscape and atmosphere. Competitions also provide a valuable space for collaboration. As this is our first competition as a team, it allowed us to develop ideas together, combine our individual perspectives, and discover how we complement each other throughout the design process. At the same time, competing alongside participants from around the world motivates us to continuously improve and learn from different ways of thinking about architecture. Regardless of the outcome, we believe every competition is worthwhile. Each project strengthens our design process, sharpens our ability to communicate ideas, and teaches us something new about architecture and ourselves. Every challenge becomes another step in our professional development, giving us greater confidence and a deeper understanding that we can carry into future projects. We see competitions as an essential part of our growth as architects and hope to continue participating regularly in the years to come.”
Honorable Mention
Black Sauna
Milan Marko M Engström, Benoit Lagarde
France
“Architecture competitions are a great way to explore subjects we are passionate about, continue developing our creativity and enjoy working on ideas that we might not have the opportunity to address in everyday practice. They are also an excellent way to keep practicing, experimenting, and improving as designers.”
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