Vesta is a community hearth designed to introduce a convivial cooking experience into the contemporary lifestyle. The project serves as an armature for social interaction and cultural exchange by encouraging people to share in the creative act of meal preparation. Vesta is simultaneously a usable kitchen, mechanism for cooperation, and a social nucleus.

The project was part of an exhibition at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, headed up by Peter Lynch and based on the ideas of Ivan Illich, for which students were challenged to propose an object, ritual, idea, product or method that would encourage others to live a more creative, autonomous, and socially and environmentally constructive lives.

Created by first year design student Jeff Sturges, Vesta emerged from a desire to re-emphasize physical space interaction in a world where 'virtual' means of interaction are rapidly proliferating. Vesta is an effort to leverage technologies, both old and new, that have an overall benefit to society, reinforcing the value of physical space exchange, cooperation and human contact.