Sauna House opens on Aarhus Ø, and 3.000 have already signed up

There's something about the heat that calms the mind. Maybe it's because the body suddenly has something else to do than think. It just has to be there, lie down on a bench, feel itself getting heavy, and feel its breathing slowly getting deeper.

That feeling is about to find a new place in Aarhus. On a yet-to-be-revealed corner of Aarhus Ø, Sauna House will open at the end of 2026, and although neither the groundbreaking nor the exact address has been announced, around 3.000 people have already signed up for the waiting list. In just one month.

Aarhus was discovered somewhat by accident

It was actually never the plan to launch Aarhus so early. When Sauna House opened its first location in Copenhagen in March 2025, the team behind it had also prepared a subpage for a future Aarhus branch. Just to be on the safe side, in case there was demand.

Then their graphic designer accidentally put the subpage online. Before the launch, before anything was announced and before a location had even been found. And people started signing up anyway.

“It was an indication that Aarhus was also interested,” says Hoang, one of the men behind Sauna House. The Copenhagen membership has been sold out since they opened, and today there is no open registration. Only a waiting list. The same story seems to be repeating itself on Aarhus Ø, where the number of registrations is increasing every day.

How exactly? They won't say yet.

The location has been found, the architects are on board, and the building will soon begin to take shape. But where on Aarhus Ø it will be, they are sticking close to home. And it is a completely conscious choice.

“Anticipation gives a little interest,” says Hoang with a smile. It will be a small revelation when the construction site finally gets a name. Until then, we will have to settle for being told that it is close to the water and that there will be direct access to the sea. The latter is no coincidence. When your body has just been sitting in 90-100 degrees, it is something special to be able to step directly into the cold Aarhus Bay.

Three saunas, each with its own temperature

Sauna House builds the house around three different saunas, each offering something unique.
One is quiet. It is the sauna for those of you who need to shut out the world for a quarter of an hour, read a few pages, or just sit with your own thoughts without having to deal with anyone. The other is social. Here you talk over the heat, as you might do on a walk or over a glass of wine. The third is saunagus, where a gusmester works with essential oils, heat and temperature changes, and guides the participants through a complex experience.

It's a deliberate spread. For some, an hour of sitting meditation is just right. For others, it's the temperature changes and choreography that appeal. Sauna House wants to be able to offer both in the same place.

A place in everyday life, not an excursion

One of the things Hoang keeps coming back to is that they want to be something other than a wellness gesture that you save up for. It should be something you can drop in to after work or in the middle of a Thursday, and where you decide for yourself whether it's for fifteen minutes or an hour.

He calls it “daily luxury.” A place where you have a membership and therefore don’t have to plan, book or make it something special. You just go there because you need to.

That flexibility is something he believes has surprised people in Copenhagen. It's not a booked gusseance where you have to arrive at 18pm sharp. It's a house you can check in and check out of.

A community without suits

Hoang explains how the sauna changes the way we normally meet each other.

In everyday life, we read people quickly. By their clothes, by their shoes, by the way they move. But in a sauna, there’s not much to read. People are wearing swimsuits, and that’s about it. “That means,” he says, “that the kind of preconceptions we normally carry around are put aside. People are there on the same premise. They’re warm, and they’re quiet for a moment.”

It's a good observation, and it says something that goes beyond Sauna House itself. Aarhus is a city of immigrants. Many people move here for work or study, and build their adult lives in a city where they may not know anyone. Finding a new social circle as an adult is difficult, and it is often the random, shared framework that opens up opportunities.

In Copenhagen, Sauna House itself is surprised by how much community has emerged organically. People who met on a bench in a sauna, and who are now seen outside the house as well. That's not what they sold access to. But that's what has apparently come along.

Who comes to Sauna House?

The average age in Copenhagen is around 33, and most members are between their mid-20s and mid-50s. These are people with a daily routine, a job, maybe children, and a reason to have a place where they can put their phone down.

In Aarhus, Sauna House expects to have room for around 1.500-1.700 members. This is a deliberate ceiling. When it's full, it's full, and you move onto the waiting list. It's the same model that has worked in Copenhagen, and it looks like it's on its way to working here too.

Expected opening at the end of 2026

Sauna House will open in Aarhus in the fourth quarter of 2026, probably in November or December. The construction itself is taking shape, and the architects are working on the details. When the doors open, the house will house three saunas, a cold water area, an infrared sauna, a lounge, changing rooms and an outdoor area with direct access to the sea.

Until then, you can sign up for the waiting list for free via saunahouse.dk and get access to membership before new ones are closed.

Aarhus already has a strong bathing culture. Sauna House sits on top of that landscape, not in opposition to it, but as another layer. A place open every day, where the heat is on, and where the same old group slowly finds each other over months and years.

And then there's still that address that we haven't been told yet. We'll see.