In the 1970s, it became all the rage to convert old farmhouses into homes. The motivation? A return to ‘authentic living’, away from the bourgeois or ‘modern’ home. From the outside, the buildings still resembled farmhouses, but inside they slavishly replicated the bourgeois living layout. Not so with the conversion of a cowshed in Elversele near Temse by Man architects: the feeding troughs remain prominently in place. The living space has nestled itself in between.

“Come in. I just need to fetch the little one, but there’s coffee here. Feel free to have a look around in the meantime,” says Yusuf Yanan, the proud owner of this old barn. It’s the first time ever that something like this has happened to me: walking through a house all on my own, without any explanation from the architect or owner.