Residential: Where fire meets family
In a home, fire is more than a fixture. It is a feeling.
The flicker of a flame appeals to something deep and human. People gather around it without being asked. It’s where stories stretch into the evening, where holidays come alive, where children and grandparents find a natural centrepoint.
Today’s homeowners are seeking more than aesthetic beauty – they’re craving comfort, connection, and grounding. A fireplace, whether indoors or outside, bridges these needs with ease. It anchors open-concept layouts with warmth and intention. It defines gathering zones without building walls. It softens contemporary lines with a sense of presence and belonging.
Designers hold the rare ability to shape how families truly live: how they slow down, unwind, and create memories. Fire invites those rituals effortlessly. Whether a sleek linear insert or a rustic stone hearth, the emotional outcome is the same: a space that encourages togetherness, ease, and the gentle slowing of time.
Commercial: Fire as the experience maker
In hospitality and commercial environments, fire becomes something even more powerful: an atmosphere architect.
A single flame feature can shift an entire room’s emotional tone. Guests step into a lobby or settle beside a dining table glowing with firelight, and their posture changes. They exhale. Conversation opens. A sense of comfort, even belonging, fills the space.
Hospitality design revolves around curated experience – and fire is one of the most potent sensory cues available. It warms not only the air but the ambiance. Light shimmers, shadows play, and even expansive spaces feel intimate and human again.
This isn’t just aesthetics; it’s neuroscience. Research shows that watching fire reduces blood pressure, lowers stress, and evokes feelings of safety and social cohesion. It’s why guests linger longer in firelit restaurants and why hotel lobbies with flames are remembered long after checkout.
Fire: Humanity’s original design element
We’ve had the privilege of helping designers bring this timeless element into countless projects – from dramatic centrepieces to subtle architectural integrations. Every choice of placement, proportion, and
finish shapes how people ultimately feel in a space.
Because fire is more than a design gesture.
It is one of the earliest ways humans created home – light in the dark, warmth in the cold, connection in the quiet.
And perhaps that is why fire remains one of the most powerful tools in the designer’s palette:
It reminds us that great design doesn’t just look good.
It feels good.
It makes us feel human. OD
By: Sonia Presotto
A design aside
Why We Don’t Gather Around an Air Conditioner
As someone who grew up in the American South, I can assure you: we know heat, we know humidity, and we know the desperate summer instinct to seek relief anywhere we can find it. I have spent plenty of childhood afternoons standing directly in front of an air-conditioning vent, arms outstretched like I’d found salvation.
But here’s the thing: we never gathered there.
Fire and AC couldn’t be more opposite in how they shape human behaviour. A fireplace becomes a natural centre of gravity – warm, luminous, deeply human. The air conditioner, by contrast, is utilitarian. It cools the room, but it doesn’t connect the room.
Even in the South – where AC is practically a religion – we don’t pull up chairs around a vent to share stories or linger with sweet tea. The AC blasts; we disperse.
But the front porch fan? That’s different.
Southerners have spent generations rocking on porches beneath slow-turning ceiling fans – talking, visiting, watching the world drift by. The fan gently stirs the air, but more importantly, it sets the social tempo. It’s breezy, communal, unhurried. It creates a place to be together.
And that’s the distinction:
- A fan supports connection.
- A fireplace creates connection.
- An air conditioner simply regulates temperature.
AC is the antithesis of the hearth – necessary, yes, but never the emotional heart of a home or gathering. This contrast reveals a deeper design truth: Some elements address physical comfort, while others nurture emotional comfort. Only a few do both.
And that’s why, even in the swampiest Southern summer, we don’t gather at the AC vent. We gather around the fire in winter and under the porch fan in July – because those are the places where life naturally comes together. OD – Samantha Sannella