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Bathhouse Flatiron
By : Rockwell Group
GRANDS PRIX DU DESIGN – 17th edition
Discipline : Interior Design : Grand Winner
Categories : Education, Institution & Healthcare / Professional Office & Clinic : Gold Certification
Categories : Culture, Sport & Leisure / Wellness Center & Spa : Platinum Winner
Co-founders Travis Talmadge and Jason Goodman opened Bathhouse Williamsburg in a converted soda factory in late 2019 in order to combine the vibrant, social elements of bathhouses from around the world alongside an array of treatments for the modern athlete and fitness enthusiast. Bathhouse has now tapped Rockwell Group to design its second 3-level location in the Flatiron. Bathhouse fills a niche at the intersection of a no-frills banya and a luxury spa. Here, guests find an oasis at an accessible price point, offering an elevated experience with a sleek and modern design focus. Aiming to redefine what an American spa experience is, Bathhouse incorporates ancient wisdom with the best of contemporary recovery practices in a socially engaging environment.
Our design concept for Bathhouse’s first Manhattan location was the idea of the Hero’s Journey, the common template in our stories from mythology that involves a hero who embarks on an epic journey or quest, encounters challenges with a decisive apex, and returns home transformed by the adventure and personal growth. At Bathhouse, we saw each component of the guest’s experience, from reception to treatment rooms, as having a narrative corollary to this journey, complete with thresholds, mentors along the way, and helpers along the road to “recovery.” Making dramatic use of light and shadow, our muted, moody material palette includes travertine, fluted glass, stone, concrete, tile, and metals with a patina finish. Our goal was to create a new architectural language, allowing guests to feel as though they’ve discovered futuristic remnants from an ancient civilization.
As guests enter the ground floor lobby and reception area, they are answering the call to adventure. A monolithic stone reception desk is composed of two types of travertine. Portals of illuminated fluted glass emphasize the guests’ journeys and transition. As they step through the space, shelves with bathing suits and treatment products are offered for sale. A heavy black stone back wall with a vertical beacon of light in the center is like a “light at the end of the tunnel.” Guests descend a compressed black stair to a domed vestibule featuring a mural by Dean Barger, the first of many thresholds and an aid on their journey into the unknown. They emerge at the first of two subterranean levels into the locker rooms.
Black, mirrored portals create rhythm and intimate clusters of changings areas, enhancing the notion of a journey. Glass pendants add shimmering, waterlike reflections. Stone benches and rainfall showers add a touch of luxury.
As guests emerge from the locker rooms, they enter the lounge and café for a moment of reprieve or intimate chat with a friend. This non-traditional restaurant features low, lounge furniture, including custom banquette seating, with a few seats at a travertine and limestone bar. The moody, dark space has blackened wood at the back bar, and black painted plaster walls. A cluster of organic, pebble-shaped decorative pendants (inspired by river rocks) provides a dynamic focal point, as do black ceramic pendants.
The second subterranean level contains the pools and treatment rooms. Pools of various temperatures are lit in different tones of blue (cooler to warmer), and many sit underneath large, pyramidal volumes that contain “rewards”: Glowing fields of colored lights that ascend to unknown depths and can only be seen by looking up at the center of a pool. The pyramids appear to have a mottled, metal sheen. Heated hammam benches, composed of black meteorite stone with purple deposits, surround the perimeter of pools, with a black tile floor. The exposed slab and ductwork in the ceiling is painted black. Surrounding saunas and the steam room are designed to look like stepped pyramids, clad in horizontal black, fluted concrete panels. Combined with the pools, these small building objects create the feel of the remnants of a found civilization.
A ceremonial sauna is lined in cedar with stepped bench seating. Cove lights and down lights in the ceiling illuminate the heaters. The central heater is shrouded in cedar and looks like an altar. Here, Sauna Masters perform Aufguss, a sensory experience featuring scented oils, music, and, of course, heat.
The steam room is clad in a Danish three-dimensional tile called DTILE, which is a modular system that wraps the space and creates rounded edges and corners. Strips of light in the walls of the blue-gray tile are a mysterious focal point.
The Banya is the hottest Russian-style sauna. Clad in horizontal green-purple slate tiles, it features a black stone-encased furnace. The bottom bench contains glowing strips of light.
Finally, an infrared sauna is lined in vertical hemlock wood panels to evoke the height of a forest environment. A glowing window gives a silhouetted view of lush plants.
A darkened, compressed corridor evokes a sense of anticipation on the way to the treatment rooms. Guests emerge into a small lounge area with another pyramid hovering over salt pool, and a travertine gradient feature wall. The room is wrapped in black stained wood, with benches and soft seating all around. This pyramid also features a surprise lighting element that can only be seen if you are floating underneath: The underside is clad in black mirrors with 150 fiber optic cables create infinity experience.
A scrub room, meant to be the inner sanctum of the Bathhouse experience, is like a cave within a cave. Lilac marble tables float under a ceiling with cove lights gently bathing the walls. Showerheads offer a chance to rinse off. Massage rooms are clad in a warm brown clay lime finish.
Collaboration
