Fifteen years ago, Corvas Brinkerhoff, cofounder of the immersive arts experience Meow Wolf, was relaxing at a Japanese-style bathhouse in Santa Fe. That’s when he was struck by the idea that would eventually become his next big business venture.
“I started getting flooded with images of how immersive art and steam and saunas and cold plunges could be integrated [into a bathhouse],” Brinkerhoff says. “It was a very direct experience of being really inspired.”
Now, Brinkerhoff is stepping away from Meow Wolf to create Submersive, a 25,000-square-foot therapeutic spa in Austin that will feature video projection, immersive art, steam, lasers, and AI technology. Brinkerhoff’s ultimate goal is to use neuroscience to help visitors achieve elevated states of mind, like awe and euphoria. The first half of the spa is set to open in 2026, while the completed structure will debut in 2028. Submersive’s team estimates that it will attract 200,000 visitors a year at a ticket price of $88 per person.
Designing for immersion
The premise behind Submersive seems almost too fantastical to be true—but that’s a niche that Brinkerhoff is already comfortable in. When he founded Meow Wolf in 2008, it was a small arts collective helping local creatives display their work. Today, it’s a critically acclaimed immersive experience with an Alice in Wonderland vibe, boasting five locations with their own otherworldly themes.
Brinkerhoff is proud of the cultural impact that Meow Wolf has generated. But, as the company grew, he says, he found himself wondering if he could use his skills for something more meaningful.
“We had this insatiable curiosity in the early years of Meow Wolf: ‘How can we add more complexity and dimension to what we create? What does it sound like? What’s the lighting? Does it tell a story? Are there people that inhabit this world that we’ve created?’” Brinkerhoff says. “We found that the more dimensionality that we added to this immersion, the more powerful the experience could be. As artists, that gave us a greater lever to create change in our audience. With Submersive, the question is, Can we use those same levers to create experiences that not only entertain people, but have lasting benefits to their quality of life?”
Designing the spa of the future
As preparation to design his own spa, Brinkerhoff says he traveled to dozens of bathhouses around the world, studying how various cultures engage with communal bathing. In Europe, he found the most experimental approaches; in Japan, a daily practice to sustain community; in Istanbul, historic bathhouses with rituals stretching back for hundreds of years. Through his self-guided research, Brinkerhoff realized that the U.S. has yet to develop its own robust bathhouse culture. In a 2020 study from the Global Wellness Institute, researchers found almost 26,000 thermal bathing establishments in the Asia Pacific region, about 6,200 in Europe, and just 337 in North America.
With Submersive, Brinkerhoff is hoping to change that. While the Austin location is the only one currently in the works, he has ambitions to expand Submersive across the U.S., and even globally. As with Meow Wolf, he wants every new location to have its own unique identity, building on the lessons learned from other versions.
Submersive’s Austin concept is designed as as a hub-and spoke-model. Twelve rooms will encircle a main gathering space, and visitors will be able to choose how they proceed from one space to the next. Each spa will have its own unique look, sound, and temperature—from a neon pink techno-esque atmosphere to a calming blue pool and a room evoking the cosmos. While Submersive is currently designed to give guests control over their experience, Brinkerhoff’s team is at work on an AI-powered quiz that will suggest an ideal route through the rooms based on an individual’s state of mind.
Bringing modern tech to an ancient field
The therapeutic backbone of Submersive is woven into the design of each room. Contrast baths (typically defined as submersion in hot water followed quickly by a cold plunge, or vice versa) have historically been used as a form of physical therapy, thanks to their positive impact on the circulatory system. As visitors move through Submersive’s 12 rooms, they’ll be able to experience a variety of different temperatures, as well as levels of steam and water buoyancy.
Another therapeutic element of the space comes from a budding field called neuroaesthetics, which studies the positive impact of art on the mind. Brinkerhoff partnered with Susan Magsamen, executive director of the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University, to understand how the brain’s reward systems can be engaged simply by looking at beautiful things. While neuroaesthetics is a nascent area of study, some research suggests that rooms that provide a multisensory experience can measurably reduce stress. Details in Submersive’s rooms, including art projected onto the ceiling, mirrored walls, and thoughtful interior design, are intended to tap into the benefits of neuroaesthetics.
Brinkerhoff’s team plans to recruit volunteers to experience the spa with wearable devices—including mobile EEGs and heart monitors—to keep track of their vitals. The resulting brain wave and heart rate data will help the team determine which aspects of the experience are relaxing, and which aren’t as effective.
Communal bathing may be an ancient practice, but Brinkerhoff says it’s still primed for modern innovation and reinvention. “Our aim is to amass the world’s deepest understanding of how multisensory experiences affect us on a physiological level,” Brinkerhoff says. “We want to be participating in the science and the global conversation around [neuroaesthetics]. We want to be contributing to that evolution, not only borrowing from it.”