Unlike an open fireplace, which sends most of its heat up the flue, this appliance stores: the flue gases travel through a mass before leaving, and it is that mass which then releases the heat, for hours on end.
The design choice is narrowness: a slim vertical volume, rendered in matt white, pierced by a tall, narrow firebox with a brown cast-iron frame. The whole reads as a pillar rather than a fireplace.
It stands against a wall prepared with reed — the traditional render backing of earth and timber buildings — still bare when the photo was taken. Completed in 2011.
