Overview
Sauna Dekor is a Turkish sauna and hammam manufacturer that also acts as turnkey contractor for the wet areas it builds. Founded in 1987 and in its 40th year, the company produces in its own İkitelli, Istanbul facility and has delivered thermal installations in more than 35 countries.
This page records the spa thermal areas at the TRYP and Hawthorn Suites hotel complex in theGunesli district of Istanbul. The zones listed for the project are Turkish bath and hammam; ourphotographic record also covers a sauna, a steam room and heated loungers.
Scope of work
A shared spa serving two hotel brands in one complex: a marble hammam with washing points,a dry sauna cabin, a steam room and heated stone loungers in the relaxation area. The packagecovered the room build-up and tanking, marble and mosaic, the heating circuits under the stone,the cabin and its heater, the steam generator and head, ventilation terminals, drainage andcommissioning.
One spa, two operators
A spa shared between two hotel brands has a duty profile that neither brand alone wouldproduce: two check-in patterns, two peak times, and a total occupancy the rooms have to absorbat once. The specification follows from that. Heaters and generators are chosen with reserverather than to the minimum a volume calculation allows, because the busiest hour is the onlyhour that forms a guest’s opinion. Controls sit outside the rooms, timed and setpoint-limited,so that neither operator’s staff can leave a room running. And every consumable part — benchtops, door seals, heater elements — is specified as something replaceable in sections during ashort closure rather than as part of a monolithic build.
Heated marble and heated loungers
The hammam navel stone, the benches and the relaxation loungers are all warmed from below.Slab thickness, circuit spacing and flow temperature are set together on the shop drawings:circuits too shallow give warm and cold stripes a guest can feel through a towel, circuits toodeep never bring the surface up. A lounger needs a denser circuit than a walking surface,because a body lying still draws heat continuously from one patch of stone. The hammam is along-soak room and is brought on before the spa opens rather than switched on at the firstbooking. See Turkish bathand thermal suite.
Air zoning, tanking and finishes
Three room types, three air regimes: sauna supply low at the heater with low extractdiagonally opposite; hammam and steam room on continuous extract that runs past closing so bothdry down overnight; the relaxation area kept dry and slightly positive against the wet circuitso humidity does not migrate onto the loungers and the seating. Wet rooms were tanked beforefinishes — bonded membrane over the screed, reinforcing tape into corners, movement joints andevery penetration, dressed into the gullies, falls formed in the screed, epoxy grout in thepermanently wet zones. Product pages:sauna andsteam room.
What we solved on site
The coordination problem was ownership: with two operators sharing one plant, it has to beunambiguous which control belongs to which room and who is responsible for bringing the hammamon in the morning. We handled the technical half by zoning the heating and giving each room itsown timed control, and the operational half at commissioning, where the handover covered thedaily soak schedule and the shutdown routine rather than only how to switch things on. Marbleand cabin were dry-assembled and numbered in ourIstanbul workshop before delivery.
