In the heart of Fulham Pier, along the river Thames, Sæl Spa debuts as an exclusive four-story luxury wellness club. The facility features a rooftop infinity pool, contrast therapy suites, and a wet spa area with experience showers, a dry Finnish sauna, and a botanical steam room.
Built around systemic wellbeing an d preventive health, Sæl Spa combines advanced diagnostics, biohacking, and recovery pathways aligned with circadian rhythms. Within this setting of excellence, Aquaform hydrothermal solutions were selected to enrich the guest recovery experience.
To delve into the vision and the choice of hydrothermal technologies behind the venue, we asked Head of Spa and Wellness Michaela Hurst a few questions.
Sæl Spa brings together movement, clinical diagnostics, and holistic recovery under one roof.
What was the core vision behind creating this comprehensive wellness destination along the river Thames?
The vision behind Sæl Spa was to create a wellness destination that reflects how people want to care for themselves today. We saw an opportunity to move beyond the traditional spa model, where treatments are experienced in isolation, and instead create a space that supports long-term wellbeing through a connected approach to movement, recovery, clinical insight and restorative experiences.
As part of the wider Fulham Pier destination, we wanted Sæl Spa to be a place people return to as part of their everyday routine, rather than somewhere they visit occasionally. The Thames location played an important role in that vision. Being on the water immediately creates a sense of pause and perspective, allowing members to step away from the pace of city life. Every aspect of Sæl Spa has been designed to support how people function over time, whether they are focused on recovery, performance, resilience or simply building healthier habits.
From blood diagnostics to neurostimulation and red light therapies,
your offering is heavily tailored to individual goals like metabolic reset and cognitive clarity. How do you hope your members will embrace this data-driven, biohacking approach to modern wellbeing?
People are increasingly looking for a deeper understanding of their health. Rather than following generic wellness trends, they want meaningful insight into what's happening within their bodies and the confidence to make informed decisions that support their individual goals.
Through our partnerships with leading experts and diagnostic services, we're able to create personalised wellbeing pathways tailored to everything from sleep recovery and cognitive clarity to energy optimisation and metabolic health.
What's exciting is that this approach puts the individual at the centre of their wellbeing journey and our members can take a more proactive and informed approach to their health. We hope they'll embrace it not as a short-term fix, but as a sustainable way to better understand their bodies, optimise performance and feel their best every day.
Sæl Spa positions itself as a cutting-edge destination for longevity and preventive health.
How do the hydrothermal experience and wet spa area integrate into this philosophy of holistic wellbeing?
For us, longevity is about improving how people feel, function and recover on a daily basis. The hydrothermal journey plays an important role within that because it supports many of the foundational aspects of health, including circulation, nervous system regulation, recovery and stress management.
The wet spa has been designed as a destination where members can slow down from their busy lives. The combination of heat, steam, water and recovery experiences encourages both physical and mental restoration, while complementing the more clinical and performance-focused elements of the wider wellness offering. It gives people a chance to switch off from the constant demands of modern life, step away from screens and spend time reconnecting with themselves and others. We see it as an important part of building a wellbeing community, where recovery becomes a shared experience rather than something done alone. It's a reminder that longevity is not only driven by technology and diagnostics, but also by consistent restorative practices that help the body recover and adapt over time.
The architecture and offering at Sæl Spa are strongly oriented toward circadian rhythms andcontrast therapy.
How do you hope members will respond to the water and steam pathwaysdesigned for recovery and metabolic reset?
We've designed the guest journey around natural rhythms of recovery, encouraging movement between heat, cold and restorative experiences that support circulation, resilience and nervous system balance.
We hope members embrace these pathways as an enjoyable and intuitive part of their wellbeing routine. While many people are familiar with concepts like contrast therapy, not everyone has experienced them in a thoughtfully designed environment where every element works together. Combined with the natural light, river views and connection to the wider Fulham Pier waterfront setting, we hope these experiences help members slow down, recharge and reconnect with how they feel.
You integrated Aquaform products into the wet spa area.
Which technical or functional aspects ofthese products best align with the daily needs of your facility and therapists?
We looked for partners whose products would enhance the member experience and the day-to-day operation of the spa. Aquaform stood out because the systems are designed to support a seamless hydrothermal journey for guests. From experience showers through to the wider wet spa environment, the products help us create the sensory transitions that are so important within recovery and contrast therapy experiences.
Ultimately, the products support the premium standard we're delivering throughout Sæl Spa and also complement our wider focus on recovery and preventative wellbeing.
Michaela Hurst
Head of Spa and Wellness @Sael Spa
Michaela is a leader in luxury wellness and hospitality, with over a decade of experience shaping some of London’s most influential spa, fitness and lifestyle brands. She is Head of Spa Wellness at Sæl Spa at Fulham Pier, a new destination wellness space opening in South West London, where she leads the vision, partnerships and guest experience.
Prior to Sæl, she was Wellness Director at Surrenne, one of the world’s leading private members’ clubs and longevity destinations. Her time there shaped her approach to modern wellness - community-driven, performance-led and emotionally impactful. She introduced cutting-edge technologies, exclusive practitioners and progressive treatment concepts within an environment that embraced change, experimentation and continual evolution.
Before Surrenne, she spent the majority of her career at Soho House & Co, progressing through senior leadership roles across spa, fitness and wellness. During this time, she played a key role in shaping the brand’s modern wellness proposition across the UK - from launching the Soho House Shoreditch wellness concept and supporting multiple gym pre-openings, to introducing retreats, new treatments and third-party residencies, and rolling out spa, room and flagship gym concepts.
These years were foundational, informing her belief in creating wellness environments that are culturally relevant, thoughtfully designed and deeply community-driven.
At Sæl, alongside leading experts and practitioners, she is curating a full wellness ecosystem - spanning treatments, collaborations, retail, rituals and resident practitioners. Her goal is to create a space that feels open, inspiring and connected: a place people return to not just for how it looks, but for how it makes them feel.
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