Hot in Helsinki: Exploring legal geographies in a DIY sauna

This paper will question the boundaries of the law through an analysis of alternative spatial practices in the urban environment. Examinations of counter-cultural uses of public space can employ legal geographies to unsettle law’s closure. By exploring urban regulation, the objectivity of both law and space can be called into question. This paper will discuss these ideas through a reinterpretation of the traditional Finnish practice of the sauna. This research took the authors to a do it yourself (DIY) sauna under a bridge in Helsinki. The DIY sauna utilises a gap in the regulatory net and creates its own system of rules operating outside of the laws of the State. The sauna community provides a template for alternative ways of using and managing space in urban environments.