Burning Man is an annual art event held in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Every year, a temporary city of 80 000 people is built, deconstructed and burned. In 2019, a Finnish team decided to bring a sauna to the desert. Steam of Life Sauna was designed and built by Sauna on Fire collective and JKMM architects. The team was composed of an interdisciplinary group of artists, architects, thinkers, scholars and burners with an ambition and curiosity for introducing the essence of Finnish mindscape in the physical form of a sauna pavilion to the Burning Man society.

In Finland, sauna has a long tradition of being a simple space for cleaning the body and mind. The architecture of the pavilion is minimalistic: an iconic circular art installation built in wood, focused on embracing ambient natural light and shade. The atrium yard in the middle of the pavilion is a shaded oasis for cooling down and meditative relaxation. Just like saunas in Finland, Steam of Life Sauna is about capturing the same ideal of a shared sense of humanity in a memorable and timeless way.