Growing up in Bahrain, Dala Al-Fuwaires met with a fortune teller at a family party. He predicted she would be an architect. She followed that advice but, while in architecture school, she “caught wind” of interior design.
Al-Fuwaires has put herself and the Valley on the hospitality map with her design firm, House of Form, through which she has shaped recognizable restaurants and cafés in the Vally. She is celebrating House of Form’s 10th anniversary with a rebrand and new vision: luxury hospitality; high-end hotel and resort destinations. House of Form will continue to accept hospitality clients, in select service, lifestyle and boutique concepts.
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“Over the last 10 years, we’ve had the privilege of helping visionary operators bring their concepts to life,” Al-Fuwaires said.
“What we’ve learned is that the most successful hospitality spaces are the ones where brand, story and environment are developed together in harmony. Now we are doubling down on that philosophy while continuing to turn sophisticated, sensory and luxurious hospitality ideas into reality in Arizona and beyond.”
Her clients have included CALA Scottsdale, Liberty Market in Gilbert, George & Gather in Chandler, Wren House Brewing Company’s Paradise Valley location, Laymoon Café in Tempe and Harumi Sushi in Phoenix.
Al-Fuwaires is developing projects for Kuza, CALA Paradise Valley, Magdalena in Goodyear and EMERSA, an observatory-inspired, immersive cocktail bar tucked in Buckeye’s Verrado Marketplace.
House of Form is also designing the residential portion of the Life Time Living development at Paradise Valley Mall and collaborating on a second location for Greenwood Brewing, one of the few female-owned breweries in Arizona, set to open in Chandler.
Upcoming projects include a restaurant concept within The Ritz-Carlton, Dove Mountain in Tucson, as well as the restaurant and hotel at The Arizona Inn, an iconic Tucson location dating back to 1929 that sits on the National Register of Historic Places.
She graduated with design degrees from Arizona State and Purdue universities and was immediately attracted to the hospitality industry.
“Because of my upbringing, my greatest memories were being at the dinner table with my family,” said Al-Fuwaires, who also spent time in the United Kingdom and Bahrain. “I wanted to recreate that feeling over and over again through my work. I design hospitality spaces, but I think, ultimately, I’m the hostess that curates it all.”
Al-Fuwaires founded her company in 2016, and it has since grown into a team of 12 specializing in hospitality interiors, concept development and brand strategy. Al-Fuwaires said staying passionate about her career is easy —Phoenix’s potential.
“I’ve been here for 20 years now,” she explained. “Anyone who’s been here this long recognizes the growth and the further potential that we have.
“I travel quite a bit internationally and nationally. I know that Phoenix is prepared to level up and be in a playing field that is where the Michelin chefs live, reside and grow. What keeps me motivated is to keep putting Phoenix on the map. We already are that, actually. We’re enhancing that. We are the go-to for hospitality.”
As the “go-to,” Al-Fuwaires ensures she and her team know her prospective clients’ back story, needs and wants. She called her kickoff meetings as “pretty intense,” and two to three hours.
“One of our non-negotiables when we talk to prospective clients that — if it’s a large corporation, especially — we need to have the stakeholders in the room, at minimum at our kickoff meeting. They’re the ones who have the history, the story, the heart and soul that they can share with us.
“We ask a bunch of questions and some of our clients ask if we’re really interior designers. We’re asking a lot of psychological questions, a lot of heartfelt questions so they really understand the brand in a comprehensive way, versus just providing an esthetic solution for esthetics sake. We’re very story driven. Once we have their story, we dive into our design work.”
In summer 2025, House of Form opened its branding department, led by Miles McDermott. This initiative integrates strategy, visual identity and storytelling directly into the design process.
“We’re pretty rare in that we do a ton of storytelling and development,” McDermott said. “We give purpose and meaning behind all of the pieces. It’s never, ‘This looks cool, so let’s just put that in there.’ It’s always very calculated and based on this lore that House of Form creates.”
McDermott was inspired by his Art Institute of Phoenix professor, Alison King, who runs Modern Phoenix, a mid-century conservation group, and his interior design mother. “[King] really turned my eye toward spaces and buildings, particularly of the past.”
His mother exposed him to thrifting, something he carries into his career.
“I know what looks good, how to organize things and where to get it for less than a billion dollars,” he said with a laugh.
Further investments are being made toward their in-house design collection of globally sourced furnishings, vintage artifacts and custom pieces. The resource allows designers to layer distinctive materials and rare objects into projects, creating environments that feel deeply curated and difficult to replicate.
McDermott said he and Al-Fuwaires are “each other’s devil’s advocate in the best way possible.”
“We take our clients to an incredible, empowering place,” he added. “A lot of times, they didn’t realize they didn’t have it. It’s crazy to see the difference in their attitude toward their project before and after that. They know what it sounds like and what it looks like. They can speak its language.”
