Hans Maes and Joep Gosen want to make people pause and take a closer look at things they would otherwise simply walk past.

An ordinary house in remote Limburg: a rectangular floor plan, a solid gable roof, brown brick, grey slate. Local architect Jos Gielen designed it in the 1970s for a small business owner who wanted to live close to his drinks distribution centre. But the non-conformist in Gielen had the house rest on a plinth of white, round river pebbles. A horizontal accent, repeated vertically in the chimney, clad with the same white pebbles of the same width. A cantilevered concrete floor slab rests on the plinth. Columns, made from the same concrete and of the same width, transfer the loads from the enormous roof to it. They do not touch the ground; they appear to float. This lends the heavy gable roof a great sense of lightness.