How We Partnered with Ancient Ritual to Design a New Class of Sauna
Arc represents a whole new class of home saunas. It’s very small but feels big when you’re in it. It stimulates every one of your senses to gently carry you away. It uses ecological materials and it’s energy efficient – just plug it into your wall socket. It’s easy and comfortable to enter, sit down, recline and enjoy. In short, Arc delivers on its promise: to thoroughly relax your body and mind. Arc is a prime example of Whipsaw’s deeply human-centered design approach where every sensory touchpoint is optimized to the point where your overall experience feels transcendent. Arc’s Zen-like design quality helps you escape, unwind, and feel simply amazing.
How did Arc come about? What were the objectives, the journey markers, and the challenges faced during its three-year development process?
Breaking the Mold
After a search for a design firm in the summer of 2020, Ancient Ritual founders Matthew Schwab and David Bladow found Whipsaw. We at Whipsaw were instantly excited by this opportunity because it was a chance to “break the mold”. To create a better sauna experience and to rethink this old product category. Plus the pandemic was highlighting the fact that society could really use a big chill-out, and we were all craving the “ultimate sauna” to escape the troubles of the world. It couldn’t come soon enough!
Our process started with researching the market and every home sauna product out there (it was tough to test a bunch of home saunas but someone had to do it). We found many existing sauna flaws, primarily temperature instability, terribly uncomfortable seating, inefficient energy usage, and low value for the money. The saunas we found on the market were all pretty much alike. You enter a wooden room, sit down, and get hot. That’s it. Although this minimal sauna experience is an age-old tradition, we found it limited. This meant there was a huge opportunity to broaden and deepen the definition of what a sauna could be.
We found from our continuing research that it would be possible to offer more satisfying relaxation if we were able to engage more senses than conventional saunas do (heat and touch only). The psychology of relaxation reasons that every one of our senses, plus breathing, can make a contribution to easing the mind and body. It became important to analyze these sensory effects and balance the levels of each. We needed to understand the ideal ratio of heat, touch, visual, sound, and air. Getting this balance just right was the key.
Simultaneous with our psychological and physiological research, we embarked on broad concept development, which initially focused on the big emotional design goals, like what should a future sauna look like. How would you enter it, how should you sit, and what would you see, feel and hear when inside? We netted some crazy cool stuff that would ultimately influence the solution, but these dreamy concepts were mostly intended to fuel our inspiration and drive us forward with a vision.
A 360° Experience
A sauna is something you have a complex anthropometric relationship with, so every physical and mental touchpoint had to be analyzed and optimized. We jumped into full-scale models early on, so we could get a good feel for these ergonomic concerns. We built a dozen full-scale wood and foam core models, all with different dimensions, shapes, and sitting positions. We paraded all sizes of people in and out of those models to see what happened. Together, the models took up half of our studio. Arc was meant to be an interior sauna, so what better way to get in touch with that reality than to build it in one’s space? During the project our team would end every day inside our heated mockups to get a feel for our concepts, blending innovation and relaxation. We soon discovered Arc’s dimensional sweet spot where it was small enough to fit in any room, like an armoire, but big enough to feel comfortable while inside. It was about 6 feet high by 5 feet wide by 3 feet deep.
Once we had a dimensional target, we could begin the technology integration, starting with the heating function. We liked full-spectrum infrared heating technology because of its therapeutic effect on the body, which stimulates circulation, aids in detoxification, and promotes muscle tissue repair. These IR panels are thin, which was perfect for surrounding the individual with heat without adding much wall thickness to the box. We learned a lot about these panels from a veteran manufacturer, Raliegh Duncan, the founder of Clearlight Sauna. It became very apparent that IR was a good way to go.
Tuning the Visual and Auditory Details
In order to feel completely relaxed and at ease, it was important to consider what you actually see, including all forms, materials, surfaces, colors, and details. We created a high contrast “horizon” line where everything below your sight line was the black heating panels, and everything above was an off-white soft linen material that we flooded with an array of colored light. This lit horizon tricks the mind into you thinking the inside is much larger than it is. It’s like looking at a sunset where the foreground is dark and light emanates up from behind the horizon. We gently sloped the ceiling into the wall in front of you to avoid a seam that would have interrupted our sky illusion. Because of its direct proximity to the user, that light quality was essential to get just right.
Creating Arc was rewarding on so many levels. We liked that it was a chance to rethink the traditional sauna and bring it into a new era with fresh design thinking and cutting-edge technology. A project like this is a complex layered design problem, the kind we always accept with gusto. From the initial concept to the meticulous attention to detail, we consistently worked to craft an extraordinary experience for the end user that was as much emotional as it was physical. The collaboration with our client, Ancient Ritual, was also exemplary. Kudos to them for believing in good design and being patient throughout the process. The project was done during the pandemic, which helped us to deeply internalize our foremost empathic goal of facilitating inner peace, which we were able to achieve with Arc, a totally new kind of personal sauna.
The light ebbs and flows, ripples and rolls, in the gentlest of ways. It feels like you’re sitting in a lounge chair gazing at the northern lights, but viewed from the hot equator. This extraordinary illusion has a calming effect on the mind. It’s pure chromotherapy.
We spent a lot of time mocking up different lighting effects, experimenting with sheet materials including exotic papers, translucent plastic, refractive films, etc. We needed the light to reach as high as possible on the walls but there was little space behind and below our horizon to do that, considering how narrow the box is. We reached out to artist James Turrell to get his help. His lighting engineer, Matthew Schreiber, loved the product and ended up engineering the dancing wall light effects which are absolutely stunning. It’s a mesmerizing feeling to be in the box, where the walls shimmer in multi-color light. It ebbs and flows, ripples and rolls, in the gentlest of ways. It feels like you’re sitting in a lounge chair gazing at the northern lights, but viewed from the hot equator. This extraordinary illusion has a calming effect on the mind. It’s pure chromotherapy. Cole Derby, Director of Industrial Design, describes the feeling: “Arc’s light gradient above the crisp horizon line makes the space feel much bigger than it is. When you’re sitting there immersed in soft moving light, you can’t quite tell where the boundaries are.”
Of course, we needed great audio to complement the light. We incorporated 2.1 surround sound that can be paired with the lighting effects. Users are immersed in a vibrational sound bath that helps to recalibrate the nervous system and increases cellular resonance. The secluded audio environment, coupled with layered hemp wool fiber insulation, induces deep relaxation.
Function & Form
The chair inside was a critical design element. For Arc, we couldn’t have a traditional flat sauna seat with lousy back support. It had to be comfortable for all body sizes, reclinable with feet up, and armrests. It also had to be sweatproof and easily cleanable. After many sketches and mockups, we landed on our design, which met our strict criteria. We added a few more furniture elements including a footrest that can double as a guest seat and a fold-down drink tray. Each of these furniture elements is made of Japanese Hinoki wood, which is pleasing to the touch, beautiful, and sustainable.
Finally, we refined the design of the exterior box itself. Considering the presence Arc has in one’s home, the exterior appearance was quite important. We explored all kinds of shapes, finishes, and details, especially the roof line and the door details. We aimed for simplicity so that no matter what your home style is, Arc would fit right in. We felt that a quiet simplicity outside would best convey the tranquility and magic that awaits you inside.
Arc seamlessly blends with any interior, providing a harmonious addition to the home. The natural furnishings, including FSC-certified oak, convey simplicity and sustainability, while the fluid appearance evokes calmness and tranquility.
We built a final full-scale appearance prototype to test all of our design assumptions and decisions. It was a relief to see that everything worked, even exceeding our expectations. Once our reviewers went in the box we couldn’t get them to come out! It’s that relaxing. We knew we had created something truly special.
An Inspiring Vision
Creating Arc was rewarding on so many levels. We liked that it was a chance to rethink the traditional sauna and bring it into a new era with fresh design thinking and cutting-edge technology. A project like this is a complex layered design problem, the kind we always accept with gusto. From the initial concept to the meticulous attention to detail, we consistently worked to craft an extraordinary experience for the end user that was as much emotional as it was physical. The collaboration with our client, Ancient Ritual, was also exemplary. Kudos to them for believing in good design and being patient throughout the process. The project was done during the pandemic, which helped us to deeply internalize our foremost empathic goal of facilitating inner peace, which we were able to achieve with Arc, a totally new kind of personal sauna.
