Shaw's writing hut is featured in The Guardian's Writers' Rooms series. Michael Holroyd points out that this was Shaw's secret lair where he came to hide from people. We all know it rotates but it was also steeped in the white heat of technology. As Holroyd says:
"There was an electric heater, a typewriter, a bunk for Napoleonic naps and a telephone to the house which could be used for emergencies such as lunch: surely everything a writer could need."
There are many outbuildings at Monticello, the house and gardens near Charlottesville, Virginia, owned and designed by President Thomas Jefferson, but this vegetable garden pavilion is arguably the most pleasant. It has double-sash windows, an attractive railing and a pyramid roof and was used by Jefferson as a quiet retreat where he could read in the evening. Destroyed in the early 19th century, it was rebuilt in 1984 using Jefferson's own notes.
As part of the exhibition we posted about earlier today, etcher Francois Houtin contributed a dozen engravings exploring the theme of 'Cabane De Jardinier'. Here's what Sir Roy Strong has to say about his work:
"Sinister, witty, fantastic, romantic, surreal, all of these words can be applied to the garden pictures of François Houtin. These are strange and haunting horticultural visions, their hallucinatory character heightened by the artist's use of monochrome. Houtin is above all a superb technician, never more so than in the subtle cadences of his etchings. Here is an eye and a mind from which allusions seem to tumble from Arcimboldo to Dali, from Desiderio Monzu to Le Doux, from Hieronymus Bosch to Schinkel. Here too are echoes of things seen in the great garden design and festival books of the past, extravagant pavilions, bizarre fountains and a world in which nature is subjected to almost savage contortions."Well worth a browse.
The deadline for entry to this year's Shed of the Year competition has been extended to 8 June (voting starts on 9 June)... Put your home business on the Enterprise Nation map (Shedworking's there already)... Dwell blog has a great roundup of prefab backhouses... Shed and Shelter's Structure of the Month is a great tentworking structure from Exclusive Tents (above)... HomeWorker magazine is almost ready to hit the streets... Trendhunter focuses on an eco laptop pillow (below)...
Home Office Warrior is talking about making friends... Chief Home Officer looks at misperceptions about a home office dad... Bookshelf continues to highlight some great bookshelves and bookcases... The Christian Science Monitor reports on how bambook is helping China rebuild post-quake...
There are some lovely imaginative examples of cabanes de jardin (French sheds) from an exhibition at the Parc de Bagatelle, as detailed at L'Atelier Vert - Everything French Gardening who argue that:
"there simply is no exact English translation for the French cabane. "Cabin" has a different connotation in English. "Garden shed"--with its overtones of dusty storage--just doesn't do justice to the esprit of the French cabane, which is part get-away, part nature-hideout, part playhouse--but especially a place with a sense of secrecy and even magic, a place to fantasize and dream."Pictured above, a nice twist on a classic look with glass roof panels, and below the cabane secrète, built from moss and branches. L'Atelier Vert continues:
"The exhibit does a good job of leading you to reflect on the roles the garden cabane plays with respect to the human spirit. Rooms are dedicated to "refinding oneself," shelter, the desire to build, the desire to escape, to dream, and to tell a story."Well worth a browse, as is the rest of the site, especially those of you with a particular interest in France.
A Bill Kratz spot
Outhouses of Baja is an excellent collection of photos by John O Burns taken during a 2,000 mile offroad motorcycle trip through Baja, Mexico, ranging from the artistic (above) to the most basic structure (below). He has also put together a great selection of outhouses in the Western United States.
One of the keys to a successful shedworking setup is the ability to have a siesta to recharge your batteries. The Nappak means you don't need to settle uncomfortably into your work chair nor nip back into the house. Merely inflate and lie down. It rolls into a small tube for easy storage.
Devon-based Sanctuary Garden Offices is one of the longer-established garden office specialists, building each shedworking atmosphere from scratch from their own workshops. The general appearance is quite traditional and the general spec is:
• External cedar cladding – natural or painted
• Wooden joinery – single or double glazed
• Full choice of roof finishes – slate, cedar, clay
• Lead flashings
• Full insulation to British Standards
• Full wiring loom incorporating heating, power, lighting and communications.
Options include real slate or clay tile roof, painted or waney edge exterior cladding, decked verandah, vaulted ceilings, Velux windows, lead finials, and hardwood flooring.
Their sister company is Sanctuary Summerhouses which have a wide range of other shedlike structures which would be suitable for less allround shedworking but are equally as attractive.
As reported in various places (including Personnel Today), a whopping seven out of every 10 employers admit they 'never or occasionally' accept requests to work from home. The new Labour Market Outlook survey of 735 UK employers was released by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and Gerwyn Davies, policy adviser at the CIPD, said: "Inflexible approaches to homeworking risk restricting the competitiveness and growth of UK organisations if employer and managerial mindsets do not change." Of those employers in the survey offering homeworking, just 8% felt homeworkers were less productive than colleagues in traditional offices, just under a third said they were more productive, and just under two-thirds that there was no difference.
Sculptor Frans van der Ven's studio in Almere, Holland, is a wooden box clad in chipboard inside a steel one which has white plastered walls and measures 12.60 x 9.60 × 6.6m. There's storage and workspace on the ground floor, and office space and more storage on the first floor. Via 70F and Judit Bellostes
The idea of a floating shed is a very appealing one. Here's a design which is shedlike rather than deliberately sheddish, the Retreat by William Atkins. Here's how the site describes it:
"There is an entrance each end. The forward, or main cabin, is fitted with a coal burning yacht's range, sink, and ice box one side; comfortable upholstered seat, drop leaf table, shelves and lockers the other side. There will be an additional shelf over the sink and ample room under the forward deck for stowage as well as room for a good sized water tank. The sleeping cabin is fitted with single berth; chest of drawers; lockers; hanging locker; and W. C. located beneath the seat which forms a step at the after entrance."There are lots more simple but attemptable small boat designs to browse around on the site.
Robin Hamman, blogmeister at the BBC (among much else) runs an excellent blog about Shedworking's home town of St Albans. He has also put together an excellent list of free wi-fi spots in the city. I know there are various sites which also provide this type of list, but they always seem to be a bit hit and miss. If you know of similar ventures to Robin's (i.e. properly detailed free wi-fi spots) around the country, please let me know and we'll start up a list.
The Daily Mail's Tom Rawstorne was handed the challenge to put together a £13,000 flatpack shed from Argos and turn the field of timber above into the natty shedworking structure below... Did somebody mention planning permission? Well worth a browse.
Via Shedblog
Another item for the Sheds As Art folder, the three Shedshows which were held in 2005 and 2006 at various UK venues asked artists, photographers, designers, modelmakers and illustrators to design their ideal shed and/or fill it with artwork. Initially inspired by William Morris’s novel News from Nowhere, the three shows (click here for 1, here for 2, and here for 3), grew increasingly large and the final show featured sheds by staff and students from the Visual Communication Department at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design and included drawings, models, tightly scribbled plans, cages and collections of bottled memorabilia.
Well worth a long browse.
Photos (of the first Shedshow) by Brian Whitehead
"This is a kind of 'memorial' to the beach huts that used to occupy spaces along the length of the beach in Barcelona, Spain. I don't know the whole story but basically they were done away with and this monument marks as some sort of respect to what was once there. I never seen it at night, but from what I can see it can light up. Must look great."By toxicdesign
Rogan Whitenails has been appointed the official poet of National Shed Week 2008. "I hope his wonderful musings can add some wossname to the world of sheds," says Uncle Wilco, organiser of National Shed Week. Here's Rogan's first offering:
The Rhyme-Botherer’s Garden Shed
Shedspla! my shed:
Just once, let me find shortbread
In the shortbread tin, not screws;
Let the bolts in the jam jars bruise
Easily!
Is white spirit as mild as the moisty
Mizzle of morn, when supped
From the gowpen of two hands cupped;
As scant in the mouth, as faint,
Ill-equipped to thin paint,
Though it thins the thirst well enough?
We've been following Laura Geary's shed on wheels project from her initial thoughts through to the finished product. Here are the final pictures showing the interior of the marvellous build.
Via Garden Offices (Facebook group)
Business Week is on the lookout for photos of interesting home-based businesses. Mildly insultingly they say they want to hear from members of the "pajama workforce" and are asking them to send in a brief description of their workspace along with one digital image. They will "feature a selection of outstanding work spaces in an upcoming special report in photo-essay format and ask readers to vote on their favorites".
As reported in the Journal by Tony Henderson, Judi Hill's 100-year-old former ferryman's hut is probably the smallest heritage centre in the North East of England. The 9ft x 7ft hut, used as storage for the last few decades, has been given a wash and brush up and turned into a titchy museum celebrating the life of local historic ferrymen and fishermen. “I am a bit of a hut person," she told Henderson. "It isn’t just about men and their huts, there are also women and their huts."
Via Shedblog
It doesn't look like it from this angle, but according to Joseph Giovannini in Architectural Digest, this penthouse/retreat pictured above was originally a "humble, metal-clad storage shed that anyone else would have called a teardown" before it was turned into something very nice indeed by Robert A.M. Stern. As Giovannini says:
"Stern is a busy man leading three professional lives—architect, historian and dean of Yale’s architecture school—and in his practice, he found that his time and concentration were being nibbled away as associates approached him in his office asking him for “just a minute.” Stern needed a quiet place for working with two writing colleagues as well as a getaway of his own....“I wanted to create a magic relationship between inside and outside, with gigantic doors that folded open to an outside deck on the same level,” he says."I particularly like this final quote from the piece from Stern.
“People know that if they’re to come up here to the shed, it has to be a crisis. It’s a great advantage to be a little hard to get to.”The article is well worth a browse.
Photography by Peter Aaron/Esto and courtesy Robert A. M. Stern Architects
Mary is back to continue her excellent Greened House Building Adventure, but look what's happened to the build (above) while she's been away (below...
The Guardian's excellent Writers' Rooms series features one of the most famous shedworkers of recent times, Roald Dahl. Illustrator Quentin Blake describes his experiences of the writing hut at Gipsy House in Great Missenden which he points out he actually wasn't allowed into very often "because the whole point of it as far as Roald was concerned was that it was private, a sanctuary where he could work where no one interrupted him." He continues:
"He wrote in the shed as long as I knew him - we worked together for 15 years from 1975 to 1990 and I illustrated a dozen of his books. I would take my drawings down to Gipsy House for him to look at while sitting on the sofa in the dining room. I don't think he let anybody in the shed."Well worth a browse.
If you loved the light-emitting wallpaper, imagine the possibilities of this light-emitting glass from Saazs, especially considering how much window space is built into the normal garden office. At the moment it's only being used in tables and shelves, but they're working on something a bit bigger.
World Shelter's U-Dome (above) is attracting lots of attention at the Milan Triennale (lots more photos at designboom)... Chief Home Officer catalogues his friends and discusses the cult(ure) of the homeworker... Home Office Warrior has some twittering advice... Jetson Green highlights the awardwinning Abōd (below), designed as a low cost and high quality home in a box, but equally a shedworking structure in a box...
A star at this year's Chelsea Flower Show was Real Life by Brett (below) designed by Geoffry Whiten, a beautiful retreat inspired by George Bernard Shaw's rotating writing hut (I know, I know, I missed another one...)
And another was Midori No Tobira - The Green Door, built mainly out of moss (below)...
Go and hear Enterprise Nation's girl of the moment Emma Jones speak at Waterstones on May 28 in London... and don't forget to go and share your shed...
The race is on to win the coveted Shed of the Year title which will be held this summer as part of the second National Shed Week. Organised by the internationally famous readersheds.co.uk, National Shed Week (which runs from July 7 until July 13 2008) will celebrate one of the cornerstones of British culture, the not so humble Garden Shed.
Can this year's sheddies beat the wonderful and unique sheds that we showcased in the inaugural Shed Week last year, including the amazing Shed of the Year 2007 which was a Roman Temple built by Tony Rogers? (pictured above). This year's judges are property guru Sarah Beeny, wind-up radio inventor Trevor Baylis, Professor of beach huts Kathryn Ferry, Treehugger's eco-architect Lloyd Alter, Uncle Wilco from readersheds.co.uk/Shedblog, and me.
Sheddies still have time to "Share their Sheds" at the readersheds.co.uk site and can enter their buildings on the website ready for the judging in late June.
This year we are very pleased to announce that one of the UK's leading online garden building companies, Garden Buildings Direct will be the official sponsor and shed partner for this year's Shed Week and will be providing the prize for the Shed of the Year Competition. The grand prize will total £500 and the winner will be able to choose products from Garden Buildings Direct or products from one of their sister websites selling extensive ranges of garden furniture, outdoor toys, fitness equipment and BBQ's.
This is the second year we have run the competition which pits wooden sheds against TARDISes, and garden offices against beach huts in a battle royal to win the title of Shed of the Year 2008.
Sarah Wigglesworth has featured on Shedworking before, but here's another helping of her fine work, the G-Box. She defines it as a modular building system for small self-contained structures. It's fully insulated, pre-wired clad in plywood and designed for all year shedworking, coming as a flat-pack or ready-to-go structure which is craned in. A G-Box website is promised.
Thanks to the eagle-eyed Bill Kratz.
A converted grain silo which would be ideal for some shedworking. Photo by web designerBrian Warren. Via OffBeatHomes
As I mentioned yesterday, there's more to National Shed Week than the prestigious Shed of the Year competition - there's also a photo competition. And here's another great example, by Rachel and Hugh, of how they shed up in Oman. It's simple to enter the competition - all you need to do is upload your shed or shed-related photo to the Shed Week 2008 pool and you could be a winner.
Two examples of solar-powered composting outhouses today. First, above, a privy on the Mt. Whitney Trail which was removed in spring 2007 (photo by Jeff Brewer). And below, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire (photo by David Metsky).
In my scathing roundup of the lack of garden offices at Chelsea this year, I missed the Simmons & Simmons Garden – A Journey to Work (doubly embarrassing since the designers Growing Ambition, an all-female group of eight enthusiastic gardeners who have spent the last two years studying garden design at Oaklands College, are based in my home town of St Albans). Here's their description of their garden which won a prestigious Silver:
"The intention was to create a garden for a solicitor whose firm is looking for innovative ways to encourage flexible working. As a result the client works from home a few days a week in an office which has been built in a barn at the bottom of his garden. Access to the office will be via a sweeping path leading to a stainless steel curving staircase in the corner of the garden. The concept is to design a garden in the area around the staircase which leads up to the barn to create a dramatic and exciting ‘journey to work’."The garden was sponsored by law firm Simmons & Simmons whose managing partner Mark Dawkins says: “We support different ways of working and are proud to sponsor this garden as an example of how effective and amenable remote working can be.”
I'll be posting more about this year's National Shed Week on Friday so do drop by for that, but in the meantime don't forget that as well as the Shed of the Year competition, there's also a photo competition. And here's a lovely example, self-taught "mosaiker"StJohnsGypsy's Retreat, the kind of shedlike structure that brings out plenty of oohs and aahs. It's simple to enter the competition - all you need to do is upload your shed or shed-related photo to the Shed Week 2008 pool and you could be a winner.
The Work Wise UK Summit took place today at the QEII Conference Centre in London with speeches from the Rt Hon. Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, plus Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC and Edmund King, president of the Automobile Association. The theme was the environmental impacts of work and how the wider adoption of smarter working practices could make a major contribution to solving the environmental catastrophe predicted by many.
Dr Richard Betts, head of climate impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre, said: "The world is definitely getting warmer, and it is very likely that this is due to our ever-increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. To slow down climate change, we will need to reduce our emissions - smarter working could make an important contribution to this."
David Lennan, chairman of Work Wise UK, said; “More and more organisations are realising that they have a moral and social obligation to consider, and mitigate, their activities’ impact upon the environment in which they operate. There are a myriad of ways in which organisations can introduce smarter working practices, even where it is not immediatly apparent. There are various forms of smarter working, including regular or occasional home working, various forms of flexible working, remote and mobile working.”
One of the key benefits of smarter working is that it reduces the overall need to travel. Edmund King, AA president said:
“Three hundred AA employees are saving 90,000 litres of fuel or 620,000 miles commuting each year by working from home. The AA and our employees benefit in many ways. Homeworkers can do a split shift which covers the busiest times on the road in the morning and evening peak. In transport terms home working cuts out the commute, reduces congestion and carbon emissions. Hopefully other companies will follow the AA lead to put more workers on the superhighway rather than the actual highway now that the technology is much more affordable.”Ben Plowden, director, smarter travel unit, at Transport for London said: “Smarter working is a concept that fits perfectly with smarter travel programmes. By offering people flexibility in when and where they work, as well as how they get there, we can all benefit – economically, environmentally and socially.”
“Real progress has been made in persuading more employers to offer innovative flexible working practices. Those employers that take the plunge report back benefits to their business, including improved productivity, reduced costs, and better staff recruitment, retention and motivation. What a shame then that all we ever seem to hear from the business lobby is continued negativity towards flexible working. Last week’s all-so-predictable bleating around extending the right to request was a case in point.
“But despite the good news on flexible working, over the last year there have been worrying signs of a long hours cultural renaissance. An increasing number of employees are expected to work more than 48 hours a week and put in extra hours for free. We must all work to ensure that these are temporary blips and not developing trends. As we enter a period of economic uncertainty, it’s tempting for employers to retreat from innovative working practices and instead work existing staff harder and longer. But the need for increased productivity is greater than ever, which makes this the perfect time for companies to introduce smarter working practices. Those employers who are keen to make flexible working work for their business and staff will find willing accomplices in trade unions.”
Solardome SD2B for sale
4.52m Diameter
3m High
5 Window Vents
Locking Door
Check out Solardome.co.uk for full spec. Currently being used in new Channel 4 programme shooting near Longcross, Surrey. Will be available to dismantle / collect from 7th June 2008. Red adhesive material easily removable from lower panes.
Cost £6,549.00 new. Enquiries/serious offers to lbjart@yahoo.com
Mahler's Heavenly Retreats is a real labour of love by architect and Mahler enthusiast Keith James Clarke. Keith also has a series of talks coming up about Mahler and his shedlike structures in which he worked which promise to be fascinating. The next one is:
Encounters with the master's Composing Houses.
This pre-concert talk will consider the building, its surroundings and associations where Mahler created his 8th Symphony in E flat major. This work will be performed later in the evening at St Paul's Cathedral. No reservations required for the lecture, but tickets for the concert are available from the City of London Festival.
Venue: Gresham College, Barnard's Inn Hall, Holborn, London, EC1N 2HH
Date: Wednesday 9th July 2008
Time: Talk 18.00-19.00 at Barnard's Inn Hall and will be followed by a reception
I'm as proud as Punch to announce that Shedworking has picked up a top award at the prestigious Fork'n Monkey blog awards which celebrate gardening-related bloggers. Shedworking won the You're My Favourite Way of Wasting Time category, an award for the most entertaining gardening website. The full list of winners is below and I'd urge readers to check them all out:
Is There Anybody Out There? goes to esther in the garden
The Adam Pasco Award goes to Frankie at her Veg Plot
Proud Parent - Fuggles for the dancing frog beansprout photo
Vegetable Matter - Bifurcated Carrots
What’s New Pussycat - Wilb at Big Sofa
Inky/Green Fingers - Blogging at Blackpitts
We Are All in the Gutter - VP at Veg Plotting
Crash Bang Wallop goes to Cleve West’s poppadom photograph
The Jeeves award goes to Monty Don
There are so many reasons why shedworking is a more eco-friendly way of working, some of which are nicely summed up in a Washington Post blog post by Brian Reid. Reid points out that oil and petrol prices in the US are at record highs and that "getting the 40 percent of Americans who could work from home off of the roads and into a home office would save 625 million barrels of oil a year, spare the atmosphere from 100 million tons of carbon dioxide and save us all $43 billion in gas costs". He goes on:
"You can take the analysis even further. Get people to teleconference and you have an impact on airplane emissions, and enough people working virtually means fewer buildings to power, heat and cool. But you don't even have to go that far. Teleworking even one day every two weeks should theoretically cut gas usage by 10 percent, which is hardly marginal."
The Ark, pictured above, is abstract artist Lucas Kuys' floating beach hut (put on the market last month for £60,000) at Burnham Overy Staithe, near King's Lynn, Norfolk. It's 16ft 5in x by 6ft (1.8m) and built on a raft using driftwood, reclaimed wood and the roof of a grocery van. It's been in situ, anchored so that it doesn't float away, for around 50 years since it was built by a local doctor.
Via The Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph where there is lots more detail.
cdmb architects have a nice line in shedworking structures. Above is the Desert House, a lightweight structure (or as they call it 'a modern nomadic house') designed to protect the desertloving shedworker from the strong sunlight and sand storms of the Gobi Desert. Below is a more traditional example, The Rook, a stainless steel shed of three modular components made to be easily assembled and transported, pictured here outside the Louvre.
A Bill Kratz spot.
Chelsea is on all week starting tomorrow (Tuesday). If you're going and see anything of interest to fellow Shedworking readers, please drop me a line and a photo. Emma Townshend, who writes The Independent's excellent gardening blog A Nice Green Leaf, has already been having a behind the scenes look before the public gets in and her shedspotting skills are coming to the fore:
"Whilst they were enjoying the sunshine, I snuck a look inside one of the famous "Chelsea Sheds" [above], the backstage areas for all the amazing show gardens. Indicatively, despite the fact that it is the "messy backstage", it is tidier than any real shed of my acquaintance."
This writer's studio in Ghent, New York, by Wendy Evans Joseph Architecture is in the woods, 200ft away from the main house. It's rather plusher than the average garden office, 600 square feet, high ceilings, glass cornered walls and smashing views onto the woods and nearby pond. Made from wenge, cedar, cleft-face slate and natural plaster.
The Love Shack, from Australian Smartshax, is a fine example of how shedworking should be adapted to local conditions. Their goal is to provide environmentally-friendly wooden huts with large sliding doors and shuttered openings instead of windows to bring you closer to nature - indeed their slogan is "Basic amenity plus maximum connection to where you are".
Via Inhabitat
Just a quick word to say the shepherd's hut advertised for sale earlier this year on Shedworking has been sold. If anybody else has a shedlike atmosphere they'd like to sell through Shedworking, please do get in touch.
According to the latest report from the Work Wise UK folk to celebrate Work Wise Week, the average commuter spends almost 29 working days each year travelling to work. And London commuters have it worse - many travel more than three hours per day = 96 working days each year. It also of course costs a fortune, whacks the environment and is making us all fatter and more stressed. Phil Flaxton, chief executive of Work Wise UK, says:
“In a world increasingly driven by the internet and mobile communications, the requirement to travel to and from work at the same time to the same place every weekday is going to look more and more old-fashioned. This, and travelling many miles to attend meetings, will be increasingly unnecessary considering the technology available, and the nature of the global market. A change to working practices, and hence travel patterns, is one of the solutions to road congestion and public transport overcrowding, and probably the only one that is achievable in the short term."In short, we should all be shedworking.
The future of shedworking has many faces but the idea of the internal shed is one of the most appealing. Here's another take on the 'inside shed' in a more domestic scenario, Bill Hisel's Z-Box. Hisel calls this 'furnitecture' though you could equally call it 'furnished' (I'm quite pleased with that) - it's got a bed, shelves, wardrobes, and even a dog bed, all in a freestanding shedlike structure. Made from perforated steel, polycarbonate, and Douglas Fir.
Via Architecture MNP (My Ninja Please)
This lovely rooftop shedworking space by Pulltab Design was designed as a spot for reading and entertaining. As they say:
"Designed as a living environment for all seasons, the penthouse allows for a reprieve from the busy nature of the city, while still connecting the owner to the wonderful and varied cityscape of the East Village."Photographs by Elizabeth Felicella.
Cally Creates has certainly found this week's most unusual shedlike structure (above)... Shedblog focuses on a great DIY shed tutorial by Dan McGrath... Chief Home Officer has 10 Ways Your Wardrobe Says You Work From A Home Office (I particularly empathise with 5 and 10)... materialicious has started an ongoing look at construction materials, starting with Redi-Footing... bobvila looks at how to green your home office... TractorByNet, the world's largest tractor community, includes this dirt floor, open sides, low budget project (below)...
... see what's on at the Shed And A Half Gallery
Two shedlike blogs to keep an eye on over coming months. First, Off The Rails is a newish blog by Elspeth Thompson who is writing about the transformation of a cottage made from two Victorian railway carriages into the eco-house of her dreams (pictured above and below).
And secondly, as highlighted at materialicious and re-nest, Live Lightly Tour which follows a family living and working sustainably in an RV powered by veggie oil.
Suw at the always interesting Kits and Mortar has been scouring the Grand Designs Live show for all the best bits and has done a marvellous roundup of the garden office and shedlike structures on offer this year. Naturally she covered the GlassPod and Rooms Outdoor but she also came across the Jörnträhus (pictured above) about which she had some mixed feelings...
Today is the last day you can vote in the Fork 'n Monkey Awards. Nip across and make your vote count - Shedworking is nominated in two categories but you can vote for other people. If you really want to. Background info here.
The seed of shedworking is often sown during infancy and in my case Jennings' Little Hut by Anthony Buckeridge is probably ultimately the inspiration for this site. Jennings, for you poor unfortunates who have not yet discovered him, is a young boy at boarding school who has a series of mild but entertaining adventures with his sidekick Darbishire. I had the pleasure of interviewing Buckeridge a few years ago and you can read the piece here, but more importantly, Jennings' Little Hut has been serialised on BBC Radio 4 this week and you can listen to them again here in 15 minute chunks. I heartily recommend them.
Via Shedblog
Welcome to Shedworking's celebration of National Work From Home Day (which is today). I'll be updating this post throughout the day, there'll be Twittering in the right hand column opposite, and please do leave a comment to say hi and perhaps a little bit about where you're working and what you're doing today.
8.42: Children off to school, clear up breakfast things and off to the shed with a mug of coffee and the papers.
8.43: Installed in the recently tidied-up shed and on goes the computer. Half a dozen overnight emails including a great find by Shedworking's Literary Editor Sarah Salway which I'll share with you tomorrow, hellos from the two main US homeworking bloggers, and even something from the 'United States Department Of The Treasury' telling me that their records indicate that I am qualified to receive the 2008 Economic Stimulus Refund...
8.45: Start to check new items on the RSS feed - 81 since I last had a look.
8.55: Down to work. I moderate the blogs/forums for The Independent newspaper (as a schoolboy it was always my ambition to work for it) so first of all a check to make sure everybody is playing nicely then onto the final proofs for the quarterly members' magazine I edit for the National Association for Colitis and Crohn's Disease (NACC). These need some final fiddling with before I send them off to NACC HQ (just down the road in St Albans) for final approval.
9.18: Final fiddling over and sent for final approval before it all goes to the printer tomorrow. Next piece of work is a slight rewrite for a piece on China for Travel & Leisure magazine.
9.49: Nipping out to pay in some cheques at the bank and get a passport application for the new baby. Back by 11am.
11.17: The cricket is a bit rainy but the press releases from the Work Wise UK folk are flooding in. This just in, a release trying to allay the fears of small businesses over Gordon Brown’s proposal to force them to introduce flexible working legislation.
11.39: As it's a Thursday I realise that many regular readers will be wanting a Thursday Outhouse. Here's a nice one from the very browseable The Rustic Way.
11.47: Coffee break. I am playing Scrabulous with novelist, journalist and all-round literary good egg Celia Brayfield. JARS for 27.
1.42: The delights of homeworking: the inexplicable loss of my internet connection for an hour was more than a minor irritation but it just as inexplicably flipped back on at 1pm so everything is peachy again. Just spent half an hour going over final amendments to the NACC magazine with the NACC people and it's almost ready to go (just waiting on the medical editor's final comments). Time for lunch. New Zealand are 9 for 1. Good early breakthrough by Anderson.
2.21: England doing very nicely now, NZ are three down for 40. Quick flick through the RSS reader - more nice stuff including something from Shedblog: I'll be adding more details about National Shed Week tomorrow. My friend Mary de Sousa emails me some delightful shed stories.
2.32: I write regularly for the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation's magazine Rapport. The commissioning editor, the lovely Jeanette Boyd, has just been in touch with two more commissions for the next issue, one of which will look at social networking online which is of course right up my cul-de-sac. Nice people, I like working with them.
3.36: I'm going to pinch an excellent post from today's Kits and Mortar about garden offices at the Grand Designs Live show. Well worth a peek.
4.15: A quick but efficient call with NACC's hardworking medical editor who has some last minute points to discuss. Everything is ironed out and it's nearly ready to be put to bed.
5.18: Off to pick up one of my sons from a play date, then nip back home to get ready to go into sunny London for the book launch of Emma Jones' Spare Room Start Up at One Alfred Place. If I'm not too dazed and confused by the time I get home this evening, I shall add a few details about it here...
12.39: Back home now after the launch which was a hoot including a very jolly chat with fellow shedworker and journalist Nikki Spencer. Thanks to everyone who's been following me today, who's left a comment and who's emailed me off-site. Business as normal from tomorrow.
Cheers,
Alex
Just a reminder that Work Wise Week starts tomorrow. As well as being able to read a blow-by-blow account of a typical day at Shedworking HQ here and via Twitter, there are other things going on:
> National Work From Home Day, Thursday, May 15
> Environmental Benefits of Smarter Working, Friday, May 16: focusing on how smarter working can reduce your or your organisation's emissions, and ultimately cost
> Smart Working Weekend, Saturday, May 17, and Sunday, May 18: how smart working practices could help simplify your organisation's weekend cover, making it more effective and less costly, and benefit employees' work-life balance
> Transport, Monday, May 19: concentrates on the issue of transport and how smarter working practise can relieve congestion and decrease emissions, as well as free-up our transport infrastructure, benefiting the UK economy
> Social Benefits, Tuesday May 20: explains how smarter working practices when implemented effectively can lead to a better work-life balance for the workforce
> Work Wise UK Summit, Wednesday, May 21: at the QEII Conference Centre in central London, the summit represents an opportunity for delegates to share the smarter working expertise of eminent business leaders and heads of professional bodies. Speakers include the Rt Hon. Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State, DEFRA, and Caroline Waters, Director of People and Policy, BT.
Shedworking took a look at shedlike structures at this year's Chelsea Flower Show here but Shedblog has picked out two more intriguing possibilities. First is The Marshalls Garden That Kids Really Want! designed by Ian Dexter, an organic playground which features a timber orb den (great name). And there's an interesting build from Writtle College too, pictured below, a corner of a traditional Essex flower garden.
McKie Roth Design provides building plans for early New England style homes built during the 18th and early 19th centuries with practical floor plans and contemporary building methods. As owner McKie Wing Roth, Jr says: "I strive for lasting appeal through order, pleasing proportions, the use of natural materials, and the avoidance of excess and opulence." Pictured is their garden office model Barbara's Garden Studio with clapboard siding, a cedar shingle roof, and small-paned windows. The garden office has space for tools, storage and general shedworking or as the company delicately says, "enough room for afternoon tea with a guest". The building measures 6'-8" by 12' and is built with a plywood floor over joists anchored to 6 x 6 skids hidden by flat granite stones, laid up to simulate a foundation after the building is positioned and leveled.
A pleasant piece in The Independent by John Walsh - Shed of heaven: Why the credit crunch has people heading for their sheds - who comments that the apotheosis of the garden shed has been one of wonders of the new century. It's a very personal piece about what his Courtyard Designs garden office means to him and celebrating the rise and rise of shedworking. As he says:
"It's a nest of beguilements and distractions in which, sometimes, you catch a glimpse of your real self – even if that's a strange montage of cobwebs, dog-ends, wine-stained glasses, faded copies of the TLS, pinned-up photographs and invitations, dry leaves on the carpet and dead wasps in the inkjet printer."Well worth a browse.
Photos: David Sandison
Jimmy Tait-Jamieson is in his last year at secondary school in New Zealand and studying design technology - his chosen project is to design and build a semi-portable garden office for his mother, a journalist. He is still in the design stages but hopes to start building soon and finish by September. Jimmy is particularly keen to get feedback on his design so please do leave your comments below. He says:
"She wants an outdoor space that's both "out of the way" and easily accessible. It has to be big enough for a desk, chair, bookshelf etc... and peaceful enough to be able to focus on writing. The budget is under $2000 New Zealand dollars which I guess is about £800 pounds or 1,000 euros. As I'll be building it myself and as I have little building experience the design is simple and easy to build - timber stick frame resting on bearers.
"The design is essentially a simple lean-to shed of 1.8 metres by 3 metres with a small lean to addition of 0.6 metres by 1.8 metres. The walls on the north and south sides (the north side is the side with the door) will be only 1.8 metres high to keep the overall height low and make the building not be "in your face".
"The building regulations for a shed in New Zealand state that it must be under 10m2, not have any permanently connected utilities and must be further than its own height from the boundary. Due to the placement of the building, it won't meet the last rule. To comply, I'm making a portable, modular building that will be constructed in panels, will join together and rest on two or possibly three bearers. The long walls will be divided into two panels and all the panels will bolt together. As the shed is portable it won't be viewed as a permanent structure (I hope!). Framing will be 50mm x 50mm to keep the weight down and polystyrene sheets will be used as insulation. They supposedly have a very high 'r' value. This will be important as the thickness of the sheets will be limited by the narrow framing.
"The south and east sides will be clad in black onduline (long-lasting tar and cardboard based corrugated siding) and there will be either no or minimal glazing on these sides. The main roof will also be onduline. The north and west sides will be more open. They will be covered with plywood board and batten as for a beginner, wood is easy to work around windows and doors. I'll be using second-hand windows on the west side and on the north side of the addition. The roof of the lean to addition will be transparent corrugated plastic, essentially a skylight. There will be a wireless network connection and caravan style plug-in power. The interior will be lined with plywood as it won't have to be painted and will give the shed a natural look and added strength and solidity. The floor will also be plywood, with foil under-floor insulation."
Not only is Hut 33 one of the very few radio shows set in a shedlike atmosphere, it's also very funny, and it's back on the airwaves a week today on BBC Radio 4 at 11.30am. I'd heartily recommend tuning in as the first series was a hoot and the cast, including Robert Bathurst and Olivia Colman, are excellent. The action is set in a hut in Bletchley Park during World War II where three codebreakers are breaking codes. Previously on Hut 33...:
"Archie, the stroppy Geordie who wants a socialist revolution must now work with Charles, the ultra-conversative snob who rejected him from Oxford because he didn't know how to use a fish knife. Gordon, the child prodigy, wants to be taken seriously, which is difficult in short trousers and tries vainly to act as peace-maker. Minka, their Polish secretary, provides much need efficiency, although she is worryingly keen on extreme violence as the solution to all problems."
Is building with pallets the next big thing? Simon's lovely - and indeed awardwinning - shed at The Plot Thickens is a marvellous example of what can be done (pictured below). Above is the Pallet House by I-Beam as seen on Dezeen (where there are stacks more very good photos). It is designed as temporary shelter for refugees - quick assembly, no extra building materials needed, easily adaptable using local materials into more permanent housing - and was showcased recently in a New York warehouse.
Shedworking reader Mario Scarscelli writes from Umbria (do we have any other readers from Italy out there?) to show us his lovely capanno (= shed). "I built my little shed in the forest with my wife," he says. "It is my refuge for a good day in silence." He also owns a rather attractive ancient ruined shedworking structure nearby.
Shedworking is not just about working in a shedlike building in your back garden or yard (well, not entirely). It's also a philosophy, an approach to living. As architect and home office designer Neal Zimmerman says: "More than just a periodical review of outbuilding home workplaces, I see your work as being about the spirit, sustenance, imagination and romance of human shelter. There's something in a tiny building which tugs at these fundamental human needs, in a way that no mansion or castle ever can." So Shedworking particularly welcomes the latest essay from The Work Foundation which looks at ‘meaningful work’, why more people seem to be seeking it, and what employers can do to make work more meaningful? Author Stephen Overell says:
"The way people talk about ‘fulfilling their potential’ in a job could only happen in the modern world of work — it is simply not something that would have been said a few generations ago. Meaningful work rests on the rise of individualism and identity as pressing concerns for large numbers of people. It speaks of huge and perhaps excessive expectations of working life — the historically unusual sense that fulfilment occurs, or should occur, in the everyday, ordinary business of going to work... What goes on inside workers’ hearts and minds about work has become profoundly important to what they produce and how they do it."Among key points in the report are:
Log cabin and garden office specialist FinEstAm have announced that interior designer and television regular Anna Ryder Richardson has agreed to become the company's new media and marketing face.
As part of the deal, Anna Ryder Richardson of Changing Rooms fame and more recently ‘I’m A Celebrity…..Get Me Out Of Here!’ will live in a brand new, high-specification log cabin, sited on Anna’s newly purchased zoo in Tenby, West Wales. The zoo will feature in a Channel 4 programme in September about Anna fulfilling her childhood ambition of owning and operating a zoo. The cabin will be also be featured in a planned Hello magazine photo shoot planned later in the year.
Thanks to Uncle Wilco for the alert
This Thursday (May 15) is National Work from Home Day when up to five million workers are expected to work from home across the UK, according to the not-for-profit Work Wise UK which helps organisations wanting to adopt smarter working practices. Nearly 3.5 million people already work from home in the UK, an increase of 600,000 since 1997. The highest proportion of home workers is in the South West with 15.7 per cent, followed by Eastern England with 14.4 per cent. The lowest is in the North East with 9.3 per cent, followed by Scotland with 9.4 per cent. “The benefits of working from home, even occasionally, are now widely accepted,” said Phil Flaxton, chief executive of Work Wise UK. “Not only does it reduce the amount of commuting people have to do, enhancing their work-life balance, but many are actually more productive. Although many organisations practise the age-old philosophy of ‘presenteeism’, they should open their eyes to the new work ethic spreading across the UK and try out home working: they may well be surprised.”
To celebrate, Shedworking will be repeating last year's highly popular experiment, giving readers regular updates throughout the day of exactly what's going on at Shedworking HQ. If you drop by on Thursday, please do say hello and perhaps include a little about where you're working. I'll also be Twittering about it (see right hand column) if you'd like to follow things that way (there'll be exclusive Twitter-only updates!).
Probably the most famous Poetry House is detailed in Lester Walker's seminal tome A Little House of My Own: 47 Grand Designs for 47 Tiny Houses and is owned by artist Carol Anthony. It's a 26 square ft converted outhouse, with deck, where she goes to work or simply relax. "Solitude is necessary nourishment for any creative process to begin," she says, describing the shedlike structure as "a small, intimate slice of prose but representative of the bigger conversation of what I'm all about." It's a lovely build and worth the price of the book in itself (well, just about).
Pictured above is an equally lovely example, The Poetry House by sculptor Bruce Johnson (do click - it's a marvellous website, full of gorgeous pictures and a great gong). Inspired by a poem by Elizabeth Carothers Herron, Johnson constructed this smashing building (redwood, copper) as an architectural sculpture inspired by a traditional Japanese teahouse (now on display at the Paradise Wood Sculpture Grove in Santa Rosa). Lines from Herron's poem have been transcribed onto both the interiors and exteriors of the building."The intention is to imbue this small quiet space with poetry," she says. "Bruce created a space for reflection, for slowing down, for being more thoughtful, and poetry epitomizes that state of mind." Johnson adds: ""So what is a poetry house? I have come to feel that it is the empty space where attention resides...like prayers in a prayer wheel the invisible text has resonance."
USB ports can be useful for many work-related tasks, but they can also help you enjoy your shedworking experience that little bit more. Gogo-gadgets are among various suppliers of USB-based fun including the mini Retro Desk Vac pictured above and the mini fridge and mini greenhouse pictured below. Simply plug and play. And work of course.
Another entry in the 'sheds in art' category, this time from Melbourne, Australia, where, as part of their In The Shed installation, Moth Design asked eight 'creative thinkers' to give a twist to the idea of the suburban shed in the city's Federation Square. As they say: "In The Shed will serve as a reminder, a conversation and a metaphor for suburbia, community and the great Australian dream." Each DIY flatpacked shed was placed on the steps of the square "glinting in the sun, perfectly spaced, egalitarian in their very nature, just like the visible houses alongside the freeways as you head out of the city". They continue:
"Each shed appears the same from theoutside. However, as you open each door, you glimpse a private moment in the life of the owner. Contents and meaning vary: from build-your-own DIY icons, drills and other building tools that are flat-packed and ready to be constructed to a set of cards, for a DIY life, with instructions for every element of your life. Each interior represents a different in terpretation of DIY culture, past and present."As an example, below is Stuart McFarlane's DIY Rocking Chair which "investigates the experience of DIY production as value. Formalized as a rocking chair kit, this product encourages individual (open ended) results through a self governing construction and finishing process... Its value as an object is not determined by its form or materiality, but in the journey the user undertakes to complete the object. In many ways this product contrasts homogenized furnishings and replaces it with a model of individuality and personality…an object to value."
A Bill Kratz spot.
Musician, conductor and broadcaster Charles Hazlewood (his Radio 3 series Discovering Music is particularly marvellous) is also a proud shedworker. As revealed in a piece by Will Hodgkinson in The Guardian:
"Hazlewood's office, an old caravan inside a former cattleshed, is filled with messy piles of sheet music, albums and CDs, as well as wonky family photographs. A sign says: "Symphony in Morris Minor." Despite presenting regular shows on Radios 2 and 3 and various TV documentaries on how music works (plus holding down a day job as a touring conductor), Hazlewood doesn't have email. In fact, he doesn't even use a computer."
Possibly the smallest post office in the world and almost certainly the teensiest in the US, the Ochopee post office is a compact 7ft x 8ft shedworking structure on Route 41 in Florida. A sign nearby explains its history:
"Considered to be the smallest post office in the United States, this building was formerly an irrigation pipe shed belonging to the J.T. Gaunt Company tomato farm. It was hurriedly pressed into service by postmaster Sidney Brown after a disastrous night fire in 1953 burned Ochopee's general store and post office. The present structure has been in continuous use ever since – as both a post office and ticket station for Trailways bus lines – and still services residents in a three-county area, including deliveries to Seminole and Miccosukee Indians living in the region. Daily business often includes requests from tourists and stamp collectors the world over for the famed Ochopee post mark. The property was acquired by the Wooten Family in 1992."According to Roadside America, Ochopee has a population of 11, the shed has a pair of tiny sliding screen doors to keep out the giant horseflies, and the person who delivers mail from this post office has a daily route of 132 miles.
Archinect looks at a tremendously thin live-work shedworkingish structure (photo by Luc Roymans)...Shed Style has been out on the road promoting her marvellous new book including a stop at Hill Country Haven owned by Steven and Sylvia Williams (below).
Surviving the Workday is a blog devoted to news, notes, & tips about spirituality and religion in the workplace...materialicious enjoys the Lily Pad Cabin...Kits and Mortar has been having a fine old time at the Grand Designs Live show...Office Snapshots announces the winner of its depressing office competition... The new issue of WHY magazine looks at eco-homeworkers... DutchNews say the Dutch want more flexible working hours... Shedblog looks at another £70,000 beach hut and spotlights blue sheds... Treehugger looks at XXS Swedish flatpack homes from Next House(below)...
Is the vertical house on Bldgblog really a shed on stilts?... Metropolis looks at pocket pads...Ettore Sottsass' flying carpet armchair (below), perfect for lounge lizard shedworking, is showcased by Friedman Benda
According to Gartner, 41.4 million corporate employees globally will spend at least one day a week teleworking this year.
Grim news in the TUC's excellent new Commission on Vulnerable Employment report. In a timely reminder that many homeworkers are not enjoying marvellous home-life balances, the report compares the exploitation of workers today to those in Dickens' time and quite rightly says this is intolerable, especially since much of it is taking place within a legal framework that fails to prevent exploitation. Among the many workers they interviewed were of course plenty of homeworkers who told them "about lifetimes of poverty, being paid less than £1 per item of clothing they sewed, and receiving no paid holiday or sickness leave". If you only click through one link from this site today, this should be it.
A marvellous article from The Chap magazine looks at the correct attire for working from home - a dressing gown (as shown here in plaid by Tennessee Williams). Here's an excerpt:
"When it comes to dress, one of the luxuries of home working is that every day is dress-down Friday. You can take this a step further by not getting dressed at all, and spending the entire day in your bedclothes. For the men, a pair of Wynciette pyjamas, a silk dressing gown and a pair of monogrammed velvet slippers are ideal. The ladies can spend all day sheathed in Chinese silks far too expensive to wear outside the house, and enjoy the sadly neglected delights of the bed coat. This splendid woollen garment maintains an even temperature on the arms and shoulders, while permitting the erratic flourishes of the professional writer's pen."Well worth a browse.
An incredible structure, but a shedworking one nonetheless I'd argue, called Ring Dome by Mass Studies is showcased at the always interesting designboom. Set up in Milan in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele shopping arcade it is built of 1,500 hula-hoops and 12,000 zip-ties and was the venue for various events.
Shedworking's literary editor Sarah Salway has been on her travels again with her camera, this time calling in at Sissinghurst home to gardener, author and all-round bohemian Vita Sackville-West and her shedworking writing tower, a four-storey Elizabethan prospect tower with two octagonal turrets. Vita's study was deemed a national treasure at the back end of last year and the study's contents (including two Turner watercolours, furniture, ceramics, photographs and books) transferred to the nation in lieu of inheritance tax and preserved for posterity. 
Below is husband Harold Nicholson's pavilion (well, in memory of him). Nearly his and hers sheds.
This is probably the most popular image of an outhouse on the interweb, though I can't track down exactly where it's located.
Following the highly successful Mensheds scheme in Australia which is going from strength to strength (as reported on Shedworking here), Age Concern seems to be picking up on the idea. Its first ‘Men in Sheds’ venue is due to be open soon in Mitcheldean where men will help to renovate hand tools for despatch to poor communities in Africa. Linda Shepherd, Senior Manager - Projects, said: "The workshop has been fitted out and we now have a volunteer shopping for the tools and consumables needed to refurbish the donated items. We are distributing information leaflets around the Mitcheldean area but if you are male, 55 or over and you can get there you will be welcome. If the practical side doesn’t appeal, we are also looking for men with other skills, including admin, marketing and fundraising. The project is distinctive – we don’t know of another such project being run by any other Age Concern. This is a unique opportunity for older men to use their skills, enjoy a social activity and help others – a triple whammy!"
Via Shedblog
Shedworking regular Tom Reader has just had a new Henley garden office installed, a Liberty with a hip roof. The shed - in which Tom will be writing barcode software - has arrived just in time after a 10 week wait for planning permission as the Readers are expecting a new baby any second now and Tom's former office is now being rapidly converted into something more toddler-friendly. "As sheds go, it really is a very good one indeed," says Tom. "It combines the benefits (on a day like this) of being in the garden, with the feel of being in a real building when the door is closed. It's certainly at least as soundproof to any external noise as my old 'office' in the spare bedroom." More photos at Tom's Flickr site.
BusinessWeek has a nice little rundown of dos and don'ts for managers managing homeworkers. Here's a do:
"Help them stop. The trouble with most virtual workers isn't that they slack off, but that they don't know when to call it a day. That's one reason they're 16% more productive than tethered counterparts. But that extra work can lead to burnout. Encourage employees to have personal lives."And here's a don't:
"Neglect training. Most companies don't teach executives how to manage virtual workers, and managers often don't communicate enough with direct reports. That can leave home-based employees feeling isolated, says Colleen Garton, author of Managing Without Walls. Garton says managers should check in each day with virtual workers."
One attraction of buying an old property in rural France is that you usually get space to spare, writes Shedworking's French correspondent Nick Inman. You don’t need to think of buying or building a shed in the garden when you have convertible outbuildings in your grounds to spare. You may get a barn or two included in the purchase price, or a chicken coop or pig sty; but if you’re lucky your house will come with a pigeonnier, a quaint free-standing dovecote ripe for office development.
There are pigeonniers all over France but they are concentrated in the southwest. In the north (and in Britain) where a cold climate meant winter food was often in short supply, keeping pigeons was a feudal privilege and a dovecot an ostentatious sign of privilege. In the poorer, warmer south where the human population was thinly spread any smallholder could drill a few large holes in a wall to let the birds in to roost. In times before cars and supermarkets, life in the country meant self-sufficiency or starvation. Pigeons were easy to keep: they bred quickly, producing an endless supply of eggs and meat for the table and droppings which could be used as fertilizer for the fields and vineyards.
From the 16th century on, landowners with surplus cash delighted in commissioning round or square towers with elegantly pointed roofs a short way from the house, perhaps stranded in a field of sunflowers. These were still functional structures but they had now become follies.Now that farming is mechanised, fertilizer comes in sacks marked up with health warnings and life in the countryside more bourgeois-bucolic than a slog, property owners are putting their pigeonniers to new uses. Even though they were built for birds, most pigeonniers are large enough to make a decent-sized room out of. They usually stand on stilts capped with mushroom shaped stones to protect the pigeons from rodent predators and a flight or steps or a ladder is needed to get inside but that only adds to the sense or intimacy. What they don’t have are windows and you have to be ingenious to get around this limitation if you want to keep the harmony of the architecture.
But with the aid of a grant for the preservation of a local rural building, there’s not much else to stop you turning the cute little stone or half-timbered tower in your grounds into a home office. Just remember to block up the access holes in the roof or you’ll be forever cleaning pigeon muck off your keyboard.
A version of this article appears in the latest issue of The Shed magazine.
Regular readers will be aware of Shedworking's pet delights (rotating garden offices, interesting bookshelves, strange workdesks/chairs) and here's a welcome addition, the Daybed from Humanscale Design, made of 10% recycled materials and 95% recyclable materials, with non-fabric components constructed of aluminum, steel, and polycarbonate. Their goal was to come up with "a comfortable, ergonomic home workstation solution in a contemporary visual design to complement home décor". Apparently it's:
"designed with total comfort in mind and may be easily adjusted to suit users of virtually any stature for light home office use. The reclining backrest keeps the upper body and spine healthy and relaxed while the attached ottoman slides upward or downward to accommodate users of different heights. Daybed’s high back curves around the user’s head to provide neck support and privacy, while built-in speakers positioned at ear height may be connected to a laptop computer or other peripheral device. While reclined, the backrest also supports the elbows, reducing stress in the arms and shoulders."Humanscale have also come up with the Ciclu which combines a personal computer with a stationary bike so you can burn off calories while reading Shedworking. I know which one I like best.
Via Born Rich who also have a rundown of the 10 swankiest workstations(some of them already profiled on this site)
Ottawa architect Kevin Deevey describes this backyard studio - known as the 'Manhut' by the family of the owner - as "more of an experiment than anything". He continues:
"The program involved simply getting a small, quiet workspace into an otherwise cramped and full New Edinburg semi. The solution was to build a decorated shed in an otherwise shady and secluded part of the rear yard. Measuring 10' x 10', the "hut" accomodates a table, chair and a precious grey market motorcycle."You can download more details about the build here.
A couple of years ago we contemplated turning The Shed magazine from a simple pdf title that weighs down your inbox into an all-dancing, all-singing, all-shedworking e-magazine which you can read online (or download if you still prefer). There was a mixed reaction to the demo we put together then with the help of the nice folk at Zmags but things have moved on now (not least the price is lower as well as higher readership figures) and we've put together another demo for you all to have a browse around. So please do click here and take a look - navigation is hopefully fairly selfevident and the key thing is to click once on a page to zoom in and make it readable. And once you've had a good nose, do let me know what you think.
icWales reports that the falling property prices seem finally to be having some effect too on beach huts with a hut at Abersoch (corrugated sheeting, wood, 4m x 2.7m, no electrics or water) being sold at auction for its guide price of £70,000. Martin Lewthwaite, senior manager with the selling agents Beresford Adams, is quoted as saying: “Compared to huts we sold last year for £75,000 this one was quite cheap." Of course you can bring a beach hut into your shedworking atmosphere quite easily at an even lower cost using the lovely felt draught excluder pictured above from idealMoments.co.uk.
The idea of shedworking inside an office is really beginning to catch on. The latest design comes from Soojin Hyun and is called House on the table. Essentially, it's a cubicle office but it looks like a house, has a wide selection of walls and roofs so you can customise it, and if everybody in the office has one, it feels like you're living in a very sheddish town. Inside is everything you'd expect - bookcase, drawers, windows. I'd rather like one inside my garden office.
Via MoCo Loco and Designhole
Every year Grand Designs Live always provides interesting shedlike structures and this year among the exhibitors was the descriptively-named Clear Glass Structures. In a direct evolutionary line from Philip Johnson's Glass House and the Farnsworth House built by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the Essex-based company's GlassPod comes in square and rectangular models in three sizes, is double glazed (you'd hope so really wouldn't you), LED floor lights, and has a green roof. Options include opaque glass for an element of privacy. Each modular-constructed Glasspod takes three days to build. It's greenhouseworking at its finest.
Photovoltaic integrated building systems specialist Powerlight brought in Leger Wanaselja Architecture to redesign their growing company into shedlike zones. Above is the conference room built from recycled blue acrylic panels. Here's how they did it:
"We stenciled a typical photovoltaic cell pattern on the panels. The structural ribs are shaped marine grade plywood and finished with natural oils. The translucent conference room has a shimmering, jewel box quality. Because of the blue tint and the multiple layers of acrylic, the color and opacity change dramatically throughout the day and with changing lighting."They also produced a very intriguing bookshelf design which you can see at Bookshelf.
John Paananen says the idea behind the suburban tipi was to "take the fused nomadic home designs of the yurt, tipi, and igloo and slip the straitjacket of suburban values, materials, and methods of construction over them". The outside is built of pvc siding, polypropylene fluted sheeting, engineered timber, polycarbonate structured sheeting, foil-foam-foil insulation plywood, and polyethylene sheeting. Inside you've got plastic laminate flooring, concrete firepit, carpet tiles, hardboard panels, and polypropylene fluted sheeting. The whole thing is 18' diameter x 16' high. More photos at his extensive flickr site.
Via Shed & Shelter
A relaxing Sunday shedlike structure,Miss Trawick's Garden Shop, Pacific Grove, California. Apparently, the young William Randolf Hearst and his mother Pheobe often summered here.
We've mentioned The Guardian's excellent Writers' Rooms series several times before but I see no reason why we shouldn't do so again as it's the most human of all looks at home offices on the internet. Above is Simon Gray's. I particularly like the conclusion to his description of it.
"I suppose I should attempt to explain the scattered garments and shoes - the reason that they're there is that I tend to use my study as my dressing-room, and the reason that they're scattered about is that this is my room and I can do what I bloody like in it."I don't believe that there are any more shedworking spaces since Martin Amis' entry although Simon Armitage says his (pictured below - check out the bookshelf made from books) is above a garage so that sounds promising. What is interesting is how many writers work in an attic or in the highest room in the house.
The latest issue of the biggest selling and most eco-friendly magazine about garden office shedworkers is now out. This one has a strong literary flavour - read the first part of our new shed story serial by acclaimed author Sarah Salway, savour the shedlike poetry of Jeremy Over, and marvel at the garden office of Canterbury Laureate Patricia Debney. Elsewhere, Nick Inman investigates a distinctively French approach to shedworking and we welcome back cartoonist Felix Bennett. If you haven't received your free copy yet, please email me and I'll email you one straight-ish back.
Enterprise Nation has a nice new facelift... The Office in The Garden suggests how to beat the credit crunch... Superclubs has a good suggestion for hardworking homeworkers... Offbeathomes is chatting about blogworking spaces... Dwell blog wonders if the dome is making a comeback... Bldgblog looks at the architecture of ascent... Workology is wondering how hard homeworkers work... Shedblog features the Scouthouse (pictured above) designed around the windows... Treehugger's Wayback Machine revisits a trailer which turns into a house and highlights a telecommuting Radiohead... materialicious focuses on a spectacular double-cantilever barn (pictured below)...
Chief Home Officer has some tips for small shedlike atmospheres... The Independent reports on the school pottery teacher who turned a fortune with garden-shed forgeries...
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I've updated the post with a comment on the barn above from regular Shedworking reader Bill Dockery who writes:
"This barn is only a couple of dozen miles from my home. It's in the Cades Cove region of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and is maintained as a museum specimen by the NPS. The cantilever barn form is native to East Tennessee, and there remain dozens of these structures across the landscape of middle East East Tennessee. Some are a hundred years old or more. A friend of mine, the late Marian Moffett, published a major study on them."
This week's outhouse is more of an inhouse and comes from 1608 Laurel Grove Road, Winchester, Virginia (featured previously on materialicious and pointed out to my ageing eyes by Bill Kratz). The whole property was renovated by Dan Zimmerman and also features a rather nice shed build (pictured below) with siding reused from the original cabin and 90 degree sliding barn doors.
The whole thing is for sale.
You would have to be quite careful to do any shedworking in Jeremy Hatch's treehouse. It is built from unglazed, slip cast, reinforced, porcelain. Here's what he says:
"My recent installations employ the cultural associations of porcelain to invoke a range of conflicting responses. In representing familiar childhood experiences, I seek to question the nature of nostalgia and the in/authenticity of memory. Occupying both social and solitary space, my sculpture is simultaneously monument and souvenir - a mnemonic device that awakens feelings of loss and longing."Personally, I just think it's rather beautiful.
According to Personnel Today, the rise in flexible working is making line managers feel threatened. Phil Flaxton, chief executive at Work Wise UK, is quoted as saying that some managers are resisting changes in the workplace because they are worrying that if they allow people to work flexibly, they themselves soon won't be needed. Caroline Waters, director for people and policy at BT as well as a subscriber to The Shed magazine, said it simply isn't true that having workers in the office gives managers full control. She added:
"Managers are afraid of losing their status, their big offices and their prestige. HR should be telling managers that they have status because they deliver a service, not because they tell people what to do. Managers have to ask the question: 'How can I make my team happier?' However, we still face a problem of having to teach people how to manage."
Call Centre Online reports on plans for a pilot homeshoring project by BT in north Scotland for call centre workers. Brendan Dick, director of BT Scotland, is quoted as saying: “Homeshoring is poised to become the next big trend in the industry and Scotland is well placed to create new jobs from it. It’s also an ideal vehicle for bringing employment back to socially excluded sections of the community. Home working enables people who have difficulty finding jobs – parents with childcare issues, disabled people and people who care for sick or elderly relatives – to work from home at times which suit themselves and their employers."
Following the scare story earlier in the week about shedworking, it's good to hear an opposing voice from the clever folk at Which?. In their new study - which reveals that some keyboards in traditional offices contain up to five times the bacteria of a lavatory seat, 150 times the recommended limit of bacteria (I never knew there was such a thing) - researchers found germs which could cause various nasty things including diarrhoea and other stomach upsets. The report suggests crumbs from your lunch and not washing your hands after powdering your nose are the main culprits and revealed that 10% of people never cleaned their keyboard and 20% never cleaned their mouse. I particularly like Which? Computing editor Sarah Kidner's comment:
"Most people don’t give much thought to the grime that builds up on their PC but if you don’t clean your computer you might as well eat your lunch off the toilet."Which suggests regular wiping with a soft, lightly dampened, lint-free cloth plus disinfecting the whole shebang with alcohol wipes.
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