Prime Highlights
- StudioQuint designs a dramatic timber “Shadow Barn” extension to a farmhouse just over the Belgian border.
- It takes inspiration from the early-morning shadow of the shape, reconfiguring spatial movement and landscape integration.
Key Facts
- Located in Waterlandkerkje, southern Netherlands, near Belgium.
- Designed and opened July 2025 by StudioQuint.
Key Background
StudioQuint’s design reinterprets a typical Dutch farmhouse with the addition of a sculptural, barn-like volume clad in black wood. The resultant “Shadow Barn” is a powerful volumetric counterpoint to the existing historic building, having a dialogue in light and environment.
At Waterlandkerkje, on the edge of Brussels’ border, the scheme cleverly reacts to its rural setting. The extension’s rich texture contrasts with the farmhouse’s conventionally finished back walls without compromising its vernacular identity.
A basic conceptual plane of the project is that the addition mimics the shadow outline of the farmhouse’s morning shadow—its footprint stretched out and detached into a contemporary barn shape. This visual move brings together the past and present, making architectural footprint narrative instrument as well.
In the interior, the extension creates living space by eliminating traditional rooms. The consequence is that freestanding furniture and open plane spaces create functions such as kitchen, dining, and living. Wide front and back windows emphasize visual permeability and balance interior life to adjacent agricultural fields.
Overall, Shadow Barn quietly balances heritage preservation and contemporary design. It preserves the old farmhouse’s conventional interior atmosphere but adds generosity, lightness, and openness to the new addition. It shows the potential of using minimal intervention and poetic form-making to infuse new life in an old country building without losing its essence.
