Review: Therme Bucharest

GREEN WELLNESS

Therme Bucharest, the largest wellbeing project in Europe, is also the first wellbeing resort in the world to be awarded LEED Platinum certification by the U.S. Green Building Council. Sustainable Business Magazine’s George Bell bathed his way through a Romanian ‘wellbeing city’.

Therme Bucharest is an organism of a building. It breathes. It maintains itself. Therme Group dub it the world’s first fully sustainable spa. The idea was partly driven by urbanization. “By 2050, predictions say 68% of people will live in an urban environment,” explains Duncan Newbury, Marketing Director for Therme Group UK. “This is a challenge.”

But it’s also an opportunity for ‘wellbeing cities’. Any urban dweller and businessperson reading this article will be familiar with the downsides of urban life and technology – from mild ennui to alienation, depression, and health problems. The global wellbeing movement, at its best, is founded in a recognition that the way we organize our societies in the 21st century isn’t always in tune with the emotional and physical requirements of living, breathing humans.

This motivation is felt whilst strolling through Therme Bucharest. Over 1,500 palm trees amongst a total of around 800,000 plants from 200 species - and a grand total of 0 artificial plants - fill the building, alongside resplendent natural light. “Just as we have wellbeing for people, we have

wellbeing for trees,” says Mr. Newbury. Every tree is individually looked after by extension into the building’s hypothalamus, an underground level equal in size to the vast upstairs. Therme’s Technical Manager, Bogdan Corbeanu, passionately demonstrates the valved pipes - one per tree – which allow the control room to maintain each tree’s ventilation and feeding according to its specific needs.

Air from outside passes through not only the ecosystem of trees and plants, but even rises up through the towel racks for natural drying indoors, and enters through broad slits in the walls in order to assist the control over each area’s temperature and humidity. Therme Bucharest’s sustainability credentials, then - LEED Platinum certified; an SGS-certified water purification system modeled on sand filtration - seem a logical manifestation of their original raison d’etre. And, just like an organism, self-defense is built into the structure. “Therme Bucharest has the largest retractable roof in a seismic zone in the world,” says Mr. Newbury. “The roof, and the whole construction, is certified up to 8 on the Richter Scale.”

A city, by its definition, is full of people, so it follows that a crucial element in achieving a ‘wellbeing city’ is inclusivity. Therme Bucharest offers physical therapies at an affordable price. Entry fees range from 50 Romanian Lei (USD $12/CAD $16/GBP £9) for 1 adult for 3 hours, to an entire day for a family of 3 for 180 Lei (USD $42/CAD $55/ GBP £32), with concessions and more group deals available.

Beyond the core Therme experience - enjoying bathing traditions from around the world together in one place - these prices afford visitors some of the most exotic and

straight-up wacky wellbeing experiences. In my day at Therme I witnessed (and in some cases dipped my toes into): a cinema sauna, bamboo massages, a multi-level water park, mineral pools mimicking the exact conditions of the Dead Sea, an urban beach, and a string quartet performing next to a central swimming pool.

Inside the building - and in the extensive outdoor pools and spas - I feel as much like I’m in one of the biomes at the United Kingdom’s Eden Project as in a classic Budapest thermal spa. Since opening in 2016, 1.2m now visit Therme Bucharest each year, many from other European countries. Under Mayor Andy Burnham, Manchester will see a Therme spa open in 2022, the first in the U.K. Many other cities around the world are expected to follow. c