Hjerta: A Hveragerði Thermal Bath That Bends Around the Trails and River Already on Site

Most thermal bath proposals start with the pool. Hjerta starts with what is already moving across the ground: a thermal river, a trekking path that wraps the mountain, and a bridge set at water level. The building curls around these things rather than over them. Its central argument is quiet and persuasive. Entering water sharpens awareness of the body and of the place it sits in, so the architecture should leave that place legible.

Designed by Nadia Cheng and Enoch Liu, Hjerta was selected as an Editor's Choice entry in the Thermal Blue competition. The site is Hveragerði, Iceland, a rolling terrain of geothermal activity, rivers, rocky ground and open views. The brief could have produced a self-contained spa. Cheng and Liu instead propose a broader destination where bathing, hiking, dining, retail and social life overlap.

A Timber Edge Set Directly Over the Thermal River

The opening rendering sets the tone. A curving timber-clad wall, broken into vertical fins, rises above the stream, while bathers sit on a wooden bench in full sun. The building does not claim the water's edge with a terrace or a plinth. It sits close enough that the river reads as part of the bathing sequence rather than a backdrop seen through glass.

The fins matter here. They turn a long curved façade into something that shifts with the viewer's position and the angle of the light, so the mass reads as a texture against the landscape. For a building this long, that softness keeps it from becoming a barrier along the river.

Light Rationed Through Glass Curves and Skylight Slots

Inside, the designers treat light as something to be controlled, not maximised. The lobby pairs a dark reception desk with a curved glass wall facing a single tree in the courtyard, so arrival is organised around one framed piece of landscape. The sauna goes further. Undulating timber benches step beneath a long, narrow skylight slot, and bathers recline under a thin line of daylight instead of a picture window.

This is where the project's claim about heightened awareness becomes spatial. Reduced, directional light pushes attention inward, toward heat, skin and breath, while the benches' undulations let bodies settle into different postures. Tactile timber and restrained openings do more of the work here than any piece of equipment could.

A Teardrop Plan That Recedes Where the Trail Begins

From above, Hjerta reads less like a building and more like a drawn flow line. The elongated, gently curving teardrop wraps a central courtyard, carries a grass roof punctured by a circular opening, and sits between winding streams and a boardwalk. The massing pulls back near the start of the trekking trail, holding a direct visual connection to the path that wraps the mountain.

The most telling decision is a modest one: the existing bridge at water level stays. Hikers can still descend to the river and pass the bathing programme without cutting through more private activities. Here sustainability starts with how a building occupies land and respects established movement, not with performance metrics alone. Hjerta works around existing patterns instead of replacing them, and that is a stronger environmental stance than most technical add-ons.

Fire and Ice Translated Into Stone, Shadow and Temperature

Iceland's familiar pairing of fire and ice could easily slide into cliché. Cheng and Liu avoid a literal reading and work through materiality, temperature, light, water and atmosphere. The corridor rendering shows the method: a figure in a white bathrobe walks away from the viewer along a rough stone wall, the space lit only by low floor lights.

Set against the warm timber of the sauna and façade, this dim, mineral passage becomes a threshold between states. The contrast between rough stone and smooth wood, and between darkness and the bright river edge, gives the transitions between heat and cold a physical rhythm. The visitor feels the shift before reaching the water.

Two Floors That Turn a Spa Into a Civic Stop

The drawings show how the programme spreads across the kidney-shaped plan. The ground floor holds the thermal and relaxation spaces: a public pool, sauna, massage rooms, changing rooms with accessible facilities, a lobby, retail and the central courtyard. Above, a restaurant and commercial spaces add a second layer of public use, while the circulation diagrams trace how different visitors move through the building.

That layering is what makes Hjerta a civic destination rather than a dedicated spa. A hiker can stop along the route, a visitor can drop into a shop or the restaurant, and others can use the viewing platforms without ever changing into a robe. The project accepts that modern bathing has become a public activity while still protecting the intimate rooms where the ritual happens.

Why This Project Matters

Wellness architecture often defaults to isolation: a sealed retreat that borrows the landscape as scenery. Hjerta argues the opposite. By keeping the trail visible, retaining the bridge and drawing its form from the flows of the site, it shows that a bathhouse can deepen a visitor's link to a place by leaving that place largely intact.

It also offers a useful lesson for students working on similar briefs. The project's best moves are restrained ones: a receding mass, a slot of light, a stone corridor, a mixed programme stacked over two floors. Together they make bathing feel elemental and public at once, and they tie wellness to the everyday life of the landscape around it.

View the Full Project

About the Designers

Designers: Nadia Cheng, Enoch Liu

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Project credits: Hjerta by Nadia Cheng, Enoch Liu Thermal Blue (uni.xyz).