Rice-field villa in Pererenan: glass-front cedar sauna and cold plunge

The brief was a three-bedroom rental villa on a rice-field plot in Pererenan whose owner wanted ‘sauna’ in the listing and the view kept. The pool deck had 3.5 m of spare length between the pool edge and the boundary wall, and the villa sat on 5,500 VA.

We built a 2×2 m four-person cabin in western red cedar with the whole field-facing wall in 8 mm tempered glass, a roof with a 50 cm overhang on the sun side and a raised hardwood base on the deck. The owner applied for a PLN upgrade to 7,700 VA, which came through during fabrication, so a 6 kW Harvia heater went in on its own SiHF circuit with an ELCB. A thermowood plunge with a ½ HP chiller sits two steps from the door, sharing a trench for chiller lines and a deck drain that runs to the villa's soakaway instead of the neighbouring paddy. Two weeks on site, a test heating with the villa manager, and the listing was updated the same week.