Flame on: how to embellish your backyard landscaping design with a handcrafted outdoor fire pit

The moment our ancestors discovered how to control a fire, a completely new world opened up to them; they learned how to keep warm, prepare food, defend themselves against wild animals and explore new regions with colder temperatures. Additionally, the campfire changed their social interactions and behaviour, because it allowed a group of people to gather, connect, tell stories, and spend time together until late at night.

The beauty of a crackling campfire not only delighted our ancestors, these days it’s an attractive place to gather with families and friends. Paloformʼs fire pit designs add a modern dimension to the ancient campfire with simple vessels in architectural concrete, corten aluminium and stainless steel – all crafted by hand in Canada and delivered to customers around the world, including in Australia and New Zealand.

“We do believe in intrinsic beauty. Beauty is often found in unlikely places. Sometimes it just needs to be seen to be appreciated and sometimes it lies just below the surface, awaiting vision and encouragement,’ says Khai Foo, founder of Paloform.

Looking at the concept, fire pits are quite simple: a container and a burner. Outdoor fire pit burners are designed to create an aesthetically pleasing flame that produces a specified amount of heat and will not be blown out by the wind.

From a design perspective, well-crafted fire pits create special hubs and focal points in any backyard landscape and make the overall look of the outdoor space more cohesive.

“However homeowners choose to incorporate a fire pit into their outdoor areas, we recommend considering it as a design element with the flames creating both a functional and aesthetic impact on any space,” emphasises Khai.

The Kodo Outdoor Fireplace, for example, has a clean, minimalist design presenting a linear flame, framed in a sculptural surround of seamless steel. Because of its dimensions (1,829mm x 1,829mm x 457mm), this fire pit becomes a considerable space-defining element and work of art.

Corten steel is a material that embodies Paloform’s modern design ideas and has been gaining popularity in home design over the last decade. Developed as an industrial material, with superior corrosion resistance without the need for protective coatings, corten is a metal formulation that is meant to be exposed to the elements and change, evolve, and improve over time.

“It is an example of a material that was formulated to deal with some very practical concerns and resulted in an unexpectedly rich and complex aesthetic product,” says Khai.

One key characteristic that makes corten such an aesthetically appealing material is that it is ‘living’, which means it reacts to its environment and changes accordingly. Corten’s ‘rust’ is a stable oxidation layer that forms when exposed to the weather. In other words, corten ‘rusts’ to prevent itself from rusting, and its personality develops and expresses itself over time. This happens naturally and without intervention. For outdoor fire pits, corten steel is not only beautiful but functionally appropriate: durable, weather and heat-resistant.

The weathering steel version of the square, modern campfire, Bento Corten Weathering Steel Fire Pit combines the mesmerising beauty of open flames with the rich patina of the rusted metal. The square format, available in two sizes, offers clean lines and is the perfect centrepiece for a modern entertaining space.

Explore more design options from Paloform on ArchiPro.