°C (pronounced “Doe-shi” and meaning “degrees Celsius”) is a new transit service that combines a luxury Finnish-style sauna and designer accommodation. The first branch opens in Ebisu, central Tokyo, on December 16th, with a second branch already planned for Gotanda in early 2018.
A stay at °C can be as short as just one hour and the facility is open 24 hours a day. There are 102 rooms for men and 60 for women as well as separate saunas. The attention to detail is superb, from the amenities to the showers available at varying temperatures, and we can see this being a hit with bath-loving Japanese visitors and tourists.
Use of the sauna costs ¥1,000 for the first hour and then a further ¥500 per subsequent hour. If you want to take a nap, you can use the facility for ¥1,500 for the first hour and then ¥500 per hour after that. A stay costs from ¥4,900, making it a quite competitively priced hotel option.
By redefining sauna as a clean and comfortable Japanese style service while respecting the authentic Finnish method, we aim to introduce to the younger generation and the female customers who may not be familiar or had the opportunity to experience sauna, a comfortable and refreshing sauna service.
Although previous capsule hotels have pretty much always had public baths (sento), this is a serious upgrade and represents the latest example of how the capsule hotel is evolving from a cheap lodging for traveling salarymen to high-concept, sophisticated form of accommodation. The most prominent driver of this trend has been the Nine Hours series of designer capsule hotels. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, Nine Hours is also the operator of the °C and guests will recognise the same kind of chic, minimalist vibe in the sleeping pods.
