A sauna at Yamanakako, Japan designed by YŪ Momoeda Architects transforms strict regulations into a meditative architecture shaped by cloud, mountain, and the shifting presence of Mt. Fuji.
CYCL, the new sauna facility sits within the protected landscape of Yamanakako Village, its form negotiated carefully with the Ministry of the Environment. Rather than a project of free gestures, it is one born out of constraint: a rectangular plan, a traditional roofline, and a limit on transparency. Within these boundaries, however, the architects discovered a language of metaphor and atmosphere, transforming regulation into an architecture of quiet resonance with the site.
The design draws from the “Kasa Cloud,” a lenticular formation that hovers above Mt. Fuji, historically read by locals as an omen of weather shifts. The roof, conceived as a floating volume, evokes this cloud, while the interior structure takes on the character of a mountain rising from the earth. This dialogue between sky and ground, ephemeral and solid, creates a spatial narrative rather than a literal imitation of the surrounding landscape.
Inside, the architecture orchestrates a ritual of perception. The first floor is inward, encased by walls, guiding attention toward the elemental forces of heat, water, and air. The sauna is positioned as a nucleus, with a tilted “mountain” structure distributing the load of the roof while shaping vertical voids. Skylights and vents punctuate this core, channeling daylight and wind. The movement of sunbeams across wood, the chill of groundwater, and the shifting circulation of air register the passing of time as sensory experience.
Ascending to the second floor, the atmosphere shifts. A column-free expanse unfolds beneath the curved white eaves of the roof. Here, seated on tatami, visitors encounter the surrounding landscape in its entirety—an architectural clearing that opens the body and mind outward, counterbalancing the introspection of the lower level. This sequence, from the enclosed depth of the sauna to the panoramic release above, stages an architecture of transition, mirroring the cycles of immersion and release found in the practice of bathing itself.
