‘Lowlu’ is the English phonetic spelling of the most important word in Finland after ‘sauna’ – and that is löyly, meaning ‘steam’. It’s also the name of a new sauna complex in north London, which has recently opened on an abandoned parking lot in Kentish Town.
Consisting of five saunas, ranging from 75-95°C, and six ice baths, from 3-15°C, Lowlu is the brainchild of British tech entrepreneur Tom Bacon and is designed by Finnish architect Sami Rintala of RintalaEggertsson. Both have form when it comes to saunas. Bacon lived and worked in Helsinki, where he noted ‘high-quality saunas are enjoyed by anyone, not just the affluent'.
Step inside Lowlu, the new sauna in London's Kentish Town
'Accessibility drives behavioural change,’ he believes, and Lowlu will follow the Finnish model where saunas are a regular part of people's weekly routine. As such, the complex is open from 7am to 9pm, seven days a week. At capacity, Lowlu holds 40, but it’s possible to book the entire site or individual saunas for groups.
For his part, Rintala has created destination saunas in 12 countries, from Oslo’s Salt to the Panorama Landscape Hotel & Forest Spa in Finland. In 2022, he worked with students at the University of Westminster to create the (sell-out) Finnish Sauna for the London Festival of Architecture.
Lowlu is built in thermally treated spruce and alder, shipped from Finland and Estonia. It took three days to assemble. Creating a permanent site in the British capital was always an ambition, not least because, according to new research, the UK sauna market is set to grow by three per cent a year until 2033.
Lowlu’s Kentish Town site follows a sister location in Wandsworth, and sites in Ilford and Shepherd’s Bush are set to follow later in 2026. And what of the crowd? ‘So far, all ages from [those in their] twenties to sixties,’ says Bacon. ‘The healthy hedonists rather than the gym bros.’ And because of Lowlu’s proximity to the Parliament Hill Lido and the ponds on Hampstead Heath, swimmers are also in the mix.