Saunas & cold plunges in Glacis

The carry is the project

On a typical Glacis plot the vehicle stops on the road and everything goes down or up a flight of steps between boulders. We walk and photograph the route before quoting, size every panel to the tightest turn, and price the carry as its own line.

It is a meaningful part of the cost here and it is a few days in the programme. Contractors who do not mention it either have not looked or intend to raise it later.

Steel sub-frames and pinned plinths

Ground this steep rarely takes a poured slab. We use either a split-granite plinth pinned into the bedrock — which on these plots is usually close to the surface — or a galvanised steel sub-frame on pad footings with an engineer's sizing.

Boulders stay where they are. On a Glacis plot the boulder is usually the best thing in the design anyway: a wall, a backdrop, or the block a plunge basin gets carved from.

Rain runs downhill fast

What damages hillside installations here is not the sea but a heavy shower running down the slope into the back of a terrace. Cut-off drains above the platform, surface water routed around rather than under the cabin, and plant never sited at the bottom of a fall. It is invisible when it works.