Sound is inherently tied to seasonal change. How does Olo’s sonic architecture shift across the seasons at Eha, and what does each season ask of the body?

It’s a delicate balance. We don’t mirror the nature outside, it’s already there. The point is not to make the same, but to complement. I design the sound to give a fulfilment that pairs well with the nature experience outdoors. It’s connected, but the real work is to imagine what is not there, to hear what is not there and what would beautifully coexist. What is the sound inside the retreat that makes you appreciate the nature even more when you step outside?

Sound opens the senses. It gives guests more chance to notice, to experience things more deeply, to tune the body so it receives more from this place. And because sound has such direct neurobiological pathways, it reaches the nervous system before conscious thought does, we can use it to help people arrive. To settle the circadian rhythm, to create a sense of safety. That becomes the foundation for every other experience at Eha.

Olo’s field recordings travel from ancient forests and pristine coastlines into the rooms and thermal spaces of Eha. Eha’s philosophy says nature is not a backdrop but a collaborator. In practice, what does it mean to bring a living ecosystem into an interior space, and how does the body respond differently to that than to silence or conventional music?

Biophilia is real. Our neurobiology developed in connection with the living world, over hundreds of thousands of years, the sounds of a healthy ecosystem were the primary signal our nervous system used to assess safety. Birdsong, flowing water, wind through trees, these told the body: this place is alive, it’s calm, you can rest here.

When we bring those living signals into an interior space, the body responds at a level that’s deeper than thought. It recognises something familiar, and it begins to regulate itself, breath deepens, heart rate settles, tension releases, without any instruction.

Silence in a built space is not the same as silence in nature. Research shows that nature sounds facilitate nervous system recovery faster than silence, and that the body responds to biophilic acoustic signals at a pre-cognitive level. Silence indoors can feel neutral, but it doesn’t actively regulate the way living sound does.

Conventional music speaks to the mind and emotions. It can move us, comfort us, energise us, but it asks for our attention and interpretation. It’s a composed experience for the listener’s awareness.

What we create for Eha is neither silence nor music. It’s a felt environment, living sound, in its full spatial depth, that the nervous system processes as a real place. The body responds before the mind has formed a single thought about it. That’s the difference, and it’s why sound at Eha can do something that stillness and music alone cannot.

The Eha × Olo partnership makes Eha the first retreat in the world with a fully integrated, end-to-end sonic architecture across more than 30 zones, from the thermal pools to the guest suites. For someone who has never experienced spatial audio in a wellness setting, how would you describe what it actually feels like to move through those spaces?

At Eha, this experience unfolds across the architecture itself. Over 30 zones carry sound, from the acoustic atmosphere in the common spaces to neuroacoustic therapy in treatment rooms, underwater experiences and group settings. We’re bridging ancient, natural sound worlds with an imagination of how the future sounds. In its ambition, it’s closer to the world-building of a film soundtrack than anything that’s been attempted in a wellness environment before.

Eha was built on the belief that transformation does not end at checkout. The Olo App travels with guests from the moment they begin their journey to the island, and continues long after they return home. What do you hope someone carries forward from that whole arc, and what role does sound play in keeping that connection alive?

When we started hosting retreats over a decade ago, always in places close to nature, always built around that connection, we realised very quickly that retreats create these rare, out-of-time moments where something important has the chance to shift. But the same question always followed: then what? How do we bring the gifts with us into everyday life and not forget what we discovered?

That question is what led us to build the Olo App. It started from a simple thought: what if the nature could continue travelling with you? Not as a practice to master or another task in a wellness routine, but as a portable version of the environment itself. Your alarm in the morning, a moment of clarity in a busy day, a wind-down in the evening, or an anchor when you need to rebalance.

We all carry precious places inside us. Our hope is that Olo at Eha ignites something meaningful, a felt sense of what’s possible and that the Olo App becomes the way guests access that feeling and let it grow, long after they’ve left the island.