The Solar Workshop: Go solar in your garden office

A great new enterprise between Uncle Wilco of readersheds.co.uk and Norfolk-based renewable energy specialist Kevin Holland of The Solar Shed is making it easier than ever before to make solar power part of your shedworking experience. Together, they have launched Solar Workshop to help provide you with the most suitable solar equipment for your shedlike atmosphere. They're both fine chaps, so do have a look around the website and get in contact to add some extra eco-friendliness to your garden office in 2015.

Shedworking in the Daily Mail

A big piece about Shedworking by Claire Allfree in the Daily Mail ("a garden office no longer means a twee, alpine confection that looks like a prop from the set of Heidi") with some not very inspiring quotes by me and some nice namechecks for lots of familiar and some less familiar names including Archipod, Skinners Sheds, Warwick Buildings, Crane, Adaptapods, Pod Space and Booths Garden Studios.
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Tree Top Studio

Max Pritchard's Tree Top Studio garden office is a circular tower on two levels, covered in golden plywood and positively glowing inside with views of the tree tops and the sea in the distance. Access is from close to his house by a wooden bridge. Lovely photographs by Sam Noona.

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Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

It's Work From Home Week

All week it's Work From Home Week when the good news about shedworking and working from home generally is given a big push.


“Our own research reveals over a quarter of workers would opt for flexible working over a pay rise, and more than four in 10  employees strongly agree with the idea of being able to access work emails and apps outside of official working hours," said Graham Long, Vice President of the Enterprise Business Team at Samsung UK who is supporting the initiative. "Despite this, many businesses still don’t trust their employees to do so, highlighting the need to educate enterprises on the benefits of working from home. The option to work more flexibly can have a huge impact on productivity and wellbeing and with advancements in mobile technology, it is now possible for employees to work beyond the confines of the office, making working from home a choice that should be open to all rather than a select few.’’

More details at the campaign's website.
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Tsunamiball

A few years ago there seemed to be an explosion of shedlike designs aimed at easing problems in disaster zones around the world. While we tried to cover as many as possible, we somehow missed this marvellous one. The Tsunamiball is Chris Robinson's design for a a tsunami-proof boat which he was inspired to build following the Japanese tsunami in 2011. "I started to wonder how a family might survive such a brutal and sudden event," he says. Do please click the link above to find out a lot more about it. Below is friend of Shedworking Kirsten Dirksen's video which explains a lot more.
 

E.M.Romeo's teahouse

"A little more than 20 years ago I came to the realization that all I wanted to do in life was make things," writes Shedworking reader E.M. Romeo of storage specialists SISTEMI MODERNI. "I quit my corporate job in Silicon Valley and went to work for a friend as a carpenter. I learned a great deal from him and decided to undertake my first design and construction of a structure.

"It was to be a studio for my mother, a great artist and inspiration to me. In the backyard of her home in Fremont, California I decided to build what I like to call a Japanese Teahouse. Of course, I was not an expert in Japanese carpentry, but I used traditional concepts to inform me. The most important guide however was the old olive tree at the heart of the design. The tree dictated the form and the function. I am convinced that allowing nature to impose its will upon me was the greatest success and everlasting imprint on my design philosophy. Since then, I always look at the environment surrounding any project and allow it to guide me in my workflow. The Teahouse is made with Redwood timber framing and an oak veneered plywood floor." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Homestead Timber Buildings - Manufacturers of Quality Timber Buildings

iForm: Maintenance-free beach huts

Dorset-based iForm has an interesting approach to beach huts, putting together a wavy-roofed design that is not only longlasting and, they claim, maintenance-free and which is based on the successful lifeguard units they are already producing using their composite panel technology (think advanced SIPs). They say that their buildings are also designed to be lightweight and portable, vandal proof, and with a lifespan of more than 20 years. Options include a gas stove, solar panels, and decking.

Urban hut on a roof

We love the idea of rooftop shedworking and this marvellous concept for a shedlike structure on Athens' skyline comes from architects Panos Dragonas and Varvara Christopoulou. Here's what they say about it:

"In nine square meters of surface area, the cabin provides the minimum equipment that is required for temporary escapes and contemplation. Offering views of an artificial landscape, consisting of antennas, solar panels and insulation materials, the new structure allows for the minimum detachment from the suffocating environment of the contemporary Greek city. The urban hut creates a voluntary isolation cell over the ruins of the new Great Depression. The hut returns to the city both as a primary form and as a standard of minimum living, and establishes a heterotopia in the stepped skyline of Athens. "

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Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Laurie Halse Anderson: shedworker

Writer Laurie Halse Anderson, who specialises in children's and young adult fiction, is also a shedworker (although she calls her marvellous garden office built by her carpenter husband a 'cottage'). Here's how she describes it on the Barnes and Noble site:

"It is a magical space. I only do creative work inside; writing, reading, drawing, and sometimes knitting. He used as many sustainable and recycled materials as possible. I heat it with a wood stove and cool it by opening the windows. The south wall was originally a rose window from a church built just before the Civil War. My husband found it, glassless and forlorn, in a salvage yard and spent months repairing it with his best friend. The only thing the cottage doesn’t have is a bathroom, which was by design, because my husband was afraid I’d never come home if he installed one."

Here is an excellent video Laurie has put together explaining the need for the off-grid office and the build itself. Well worth watching.

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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.