A sauna designed by Daniels Faculty Instructor Alexander Josephson’s firm Partisans was recently featured in Wallpaper magazine.

“We wanted to design a building that would transport the visitor into another world... like a grotto,” explained Josephson. “The clients told us that each time they enter it, it’s almost as if they’re rediscovering the space for the first time.”

Perched on the shore of Lake Huron, the 75-square-metre sauna’s “angular burnt-cedar envelope echoes the silhouette of the main house. But inside, Partisans exercises its skill with complex, amorphous shapes,” writes Wallpaper’s Ellen Himelfarb.

The partners crowd-sourced the initial proposal, calling on the entire office to present ideas in a process he calls 'design-play'. Given a shortlist of four ideas, the client selected this most conceptual version, which propelled the designers into a partnership with a Toronto-based millwork company called MCM and a quest for the most advanced 3D technology for modelling and building the interior.

Alex Josephson is the co-founder of Partisans and has been the recipient of numerous awards and exhibitions, including a New York Prize Fellowship awarded by the Van Alen Institute for Architecture. In 2013, he received the Globe and Mail Catalyst Award for architecture.

To read the full article in Wallpaper, visit the magazine's website.