At Naiko Retreat, Deep Creek
It landed in the she-oaks and stayed
Designed
1968, by Matti Suuronen
Originally
A prefabricated ski chalet, flown in by helicopter
Built
Around one hundred
Surviving
Roughly sixty, worldwide
Before Naiko
Melbourne Street, North Adelaide
Now
A treatment room, for guests only
A Finnish answer to a question nobody asked twice
Matti Suuronen designed the Futuro in 1968 for a client who wanted a ski cabin that could be put up quickly on difficult ground. The answer was an ellipsoid of fibreglass-reinforced polyester, eight metres across, standing on steel legs, with a hatch that lowers into a staircase. It could be flown to a mountainside under a helicopter and bolted together on site in a couple of days.
About a hundred were built before the oil crisis of the early seventies tripled the cost of the plastic they were made from and the whole idea stopped making sense. Roughly sixty survive anywhere in the world. They have acquired a genuine cult following, and people cross continents to photograph the ones that are left.
This one spent years on Melbourne Street in North Adelaide before it was moved out to Rarkang. It then sat deteriorating while Naiko was still a drawing on somebody's table. When the retreat went from an idea to a building, the Futuro was restored with it and fitted out as somewhere to be worked on rather than somewhere to sleep.
Eight metres across, on steel legs, among the she-oaks above Naiko Inlet.
The only way in is to book a massage
The Futuro is not part of the accommodation. You cannot let yourself into it, and it is not somewhere to have a drink and look around. It is a treatment room, and it opens when a therapist is in it.
Inside: a ring of oval windows at eye level when you are lying down, a curved shell that does something odd and pleasant to sound, and the sea audible through the floor. Book when you book the stay — the therapists come from Normanville and Yankalilla and do not appear at short notice.
Who you will be lying still for
Massage in the Futuro
Normanville Remedial Massage · Sabai Thai Massage · Pause inHouse Wellbeing
The only way into the Futuro is to book a treatment. Remedial, deep tissue, myofascial release, or traditional Thai massage on a mat on the floor of a 1968 Finnish spaceship.
Yoga on the deck
Pause inHouse Wellbeing · Solace Massage & Yoga
A class on the deck with the sound of the waves underneath it. Suitable for people who have never stood on a mat. Moves inside if the weather turns, and the view is no worse for it.
