The New Thermae

The Spa at Crown Towers Perth is a signature Blainey North project, distilled from a conceptual idea of the Roman Baths, to produce a finely detailed execution, with every piece of furniture and lighting custom-designed to deliver a balance of strength, calm, and glamour.

Research into the origins of spa culture in general, and Roman bath houses in particular, revealed planning in a series of axis adjoining circular areas as points of connection. This sense of interaction is married with a carefully calibrated atmosphere generated by the notion of being underwater. The aim was to convey the sense of looking up, where things glimmer and are indistinct, where there is a sense of perimeter movement, unexpected beauty and another worldly sense of time and space.

With this as the generating idea all design decisions in terms of colour palette, lighting, fabric, rugs, tiling and artwork choices, dovetail back to achieving this ambient sensation.

Behind the reception desk a large-scale image of an agate stone, set in resin, sums up so much of the vibe of the spa: refracted light, a sense of movement, and the layering that is found in nature, especially on the river bed of the adjacent Swan River.

The spa is sited in the basement of the ‘eyebrow’ shaped building by YWS Design and Architecture, and the internal flow follows the curve of the external form, while making the most of its subterranean location to create an entirely contained and seductive world.