Before it became a home, this building in Mechelen spent decades as a furniture factory. The walls knew sawdust, machinery, and the rhythm of production. When Fermetti took on the project, the brief was clear: turn it into a contemporary loft without erasing that history, and do it on a tight budget.
The answer was not to add, but to reveal. Metal studs, normally hidden behind plasterboard, became the visible skeleton of new partitions. Channelled polycarbonate panels let light pass between rooms while maintaining privacy. Wisa Spruce plywood lines surfaces with a quiet warmth. These are standard construction materials, available everywhere, affordable by nature, but here treated as the finish rather than the substrate. Nothing is clad or covered. What you see is what builds the space.
Colour grounds the rawness. Drawing on Le Corbusier's Polychromie Architecturale, each zone carries its own tone: muted, considered, never decorative for its own sake. Hand-finished polyester surfaces by Fermetti add depth and a tactile softness that offsets the industrial shell. Together, colour and texture turn a factory floor into something that feels lived-in from the first day.
At the centre of the loft sits a prototype of the Totem Kitchen by Atelier Belge: a fully modular system built entirely in aluminium, designed around the golden ratio, and produced in their own workshop. The system rethinks how a kitchen is made, optimising production steps and cutting installation time without sacrificing precision. Taps and fittings by Antonio Frattini complete the kitchen with understated, functional detail.
The sustainability of Degroen Loft is not a layer applied on top. It is the logic of the project itself. Reusing an existing building shell avoided demolition waste. Choosing standard materials reduced offcuts and surplus. Fermetti designed and fabricated every bespoke element in their own atelier in Wechelderzande, near Antwerp, keeping the production chain short and transport minimal. The modular Totem Kitchen follows the same principle: local manufacturing, efficient assembly, less waste on site.
The result is a home that proves a point without making a fuss about it. High-impact residential design does not require high budgets. It requires clear thinking, material honesty, and the discipline to let a building be what it already is.
Design and production: Fermetti
Kitchen system: Totem Kitchen by Atelier Belge
Taps and fittings: Antonio Frattini
Photography: Kaatje Verschoren
