Overview
Sauna Dekor builds thermal areas end to end — design, manufacture, installation and commissioning under one contract. The company started in 1987, is in its 40th year, manufactures in İkitelli, Istanbul, and has completed projects in over 35 countries.
This page records the spa thermal areas at the Berkarar Hotel in Awaza, on the Caspian coastof Turkmenistan. The zones listed for the project are steam room, sauna, Turkish bath andhammam; the photographic record shows a domed marble hammam and a mosaic hammam alongside ajacuzzi and a sauna.
Scope of work
Two hammams of different character — one in marble under a dome, one lined in mosaic —together with a sauna, a steam room and a jacuzzi. The package covered room build-up andtanking, the stone and mosaic work, the dome construction and its finishes, the heatingcircuits, the cabin, the generator equipment, ventilation terminals, drainage andcommissioning.
Building the dome
A hammam dome is a piece of engineering disguised as decoration. Its function is to movecondensate: in a room held near saturation, water forms on the ceiling continuously, and acurved soffit runs it down to the perimeter instead of dropping it on the bathers. That givesthe dome three requirements. It has to be geometrically true, because a flat spot collectswater. It has to be built over a substrate that tolerates constant condensation, tanked likeany other wet surface. And every penetration through it — light fittings above all — has to bedetailed as a potential drip point, which is why fittings in a domed hammam are set flush andsealed rather than surface-mounted. Where a full dome will not fit the available height, ashallow vault does the same job. More on the room type atmodern hammam.
Two hammams, two finishes, one plant
A marble hammam and a mosaic one behave differently even at the same air condition. Marbleis a large, slow thermal mass warmed from below; mosaic on a masonry backing is also massivebut is usually heated by vapour rather than through the slab, so it needs generator capacitywhere the marble room needs circuit design. Running both from one plant room means zoning themseparately with independent control and independent soak schedules, so neither is compromisedto suit the other. Both are brought on before the spa opens.
Air, tanking and the jacuzzi
Sauna: supply low at the heater, extract low diagonally opposite. Hammams and steam room:continuous extract that runs past closing so they dry down overnight. The jacuzzi needs extractabove it, because a heated, agitated water surface evaporates faster than a still pool and willotherwise load the whole area. Every wet room was tanked before finishes — bonded membrane overthe screed and, where the surface is vapour-loaded, over walls and ceiling too, with reinforcingtape into corners, movement joints and penetrations, falls in the screed, epoxy grout above.
What we solved on site
The dome had to be set out before the ductwork was routed, not after, because a domeadjusted to fit a duct is a dome with a flat spot in it. We fixed the finished floor level andthe screed depth for the heating circuits, protected the ceiling rise the dome needed, and letthe services take what was left. The stone, mosaic and dome components were dry-assembled andnumbered in our Istanbul workshop and shipped asa sequenced load. See hotel spa design,sauna andservices.
