The Studio
A design studio for the bath.
We founded RetroModern Baths on a single conviction — that contemporary wellness deserves the depth of the bath traditions it borrows from. A steam room is not a tiled box with a generator behind it. A hammam is not a marble bench under a downlight. The Roman thermae, the Ottoman hammam, the Finnish sauna, the Japanese onsen — each one was a complete idea about heat, water, body, and time. The room held the practice. We design to that standard.
We work across the wellness typologies — hammam, steam, sauna, spa suite, luxury bath, custom thermal seating — and we work across geographies. The room is the constant. We design from the body and the envelope outward. We choose the materials that hold up to twenty years of heat and water. We name them in the schedule. We model the room in SketchUp in three dimensions, and the file is yours at handover. The drawing set is written so a competent contractor can quote it, build it, and call us with the right questions.
We are deliberately a small studio. We take on the projects we can do well, and we say no to the rest. Most of our work comes from clients who have spent time in the bath cultures they want to bring home — Istanbul, Marrakesh, Helsinki, Kyoto — and from the architects and designers those clients work with. If a wellness scope is going to sit inside a larger renovation, we are happy to be the specialist in the room.
Principles
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Form serves the body, not the photograph.
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Thermal experience is the design problem.
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Waterproofing is a design decision, not a contractor's afterthought.
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Specify the material, the source, and the grade — and stand by all three.
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A drawing should answer the question a builder is about to ask.
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The room outlasts the trend.
Where We Work
We work across North America, Europe, and the GCC. The studio is remote-first — most design hours happen at the desk, and site visits are scheduled at the points the room needs them. We have completed work in Colorado, the Hamptons, the Pacific Northwest, London, Marrakesh, and the Persian Gulf, and we travel against scope. International projects are quoted with travel against receipts, no markup.
If you are outside these regions and the project is the right one, ask. We have said yes to most of them.