Intrigued by the premise of the 2014 exhibition Pasticcio at the Flemish Architecture Institute, a couple wanting to replace their house on Werfstraat in Brussels called the exhibition designers, Bovenbouw. The show had brought together a group of European architects, including that Belgian office, who were reinventing building traditions that had emerged before the Modern movement. The clients, who run a telecommunications company, did not want a glimmering glass-and-steel building, nor did they want something dull and retro. “They were fascinated by the idea that buildings could be contemporary without all the Modernist tropes,” says principal Dirk Somers.