Saturday, October 31, 2009

End of Sumter Street shed music


A nice piece in the Wall Street Journal by Valerie Bauerlein looks at the ongoing story of the shed-sized metal self-storage units at Sumter Street Self in Columbia which have played a key part in the city's music life. Over the last 20 years, up and coming musicians of all ages have used them as rehearsal spaces (including Hootie & the Blowfish) but after a two-year campaign by a Bach-loving, Hootie-hating local resident who objected to the noise pollution, the local authority has slapped a ban on the practice sessions. It's an interesting piece and well worth a browse.

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Friday, October 30, 2009

Arctic mobile unit

A live/(shed)work space from 2-B-2 Architecture which provides enough space for three shedworkers to live and work in arctic conditions for a fortnight. The steel-framed structure, which is easily movable, comes not only with a solar battery but also a gadget for melting snow.Via designboom

Double OO ‘96: showroom shedworking

Double OO ‘96 is an interesting shedworking space designed by Case-Real, refurbishing a hut extension on a terrace to act as an office and showroom. All surfaces are covered in grey timber with the beams painted white. Lots more photos - by Hiroshi Mizusaki - at their site and Dezeen.Thanks to Hannah at Dreamwall for the alert

Euroffice - exclusive deal on 2010 calendars/diaries

The November offer from the fine folk at Euroffice exclusively for readers of Shedworking is 15% off all calendars and diaries until the start of December. Simply click here and ensure you're all ready for the changeover without any last minute worries.

Euroffice is the UK’s largest online stationery and envelope suppliers

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Choosing a shed - Dab Den

The prefab Dab Den - which are individually bespoked for each client - comes from Aberdeen-based Dab Architecture. They feature all the usuals with pine or oak flooring, timber claddings plus various door options (bi-fold, sliding and double sliding): extras include photovaltaic solar panels, underfloor heating, kitchen and shower modules, multimedia centre, rooflight, decking and, indeed, bar.
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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Sipsform Sustainable Buildings

Architects Hiscox Parladé have several interesting designs for garden offices and similar shedlike structures on their blog, Sipsform Sustainable Buildings including the Universal Option above and Shepherd's Hut below. There are also layout blueprints but sadly not much detail.
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Wednesday's posts are sponsored by The Garden Room Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Rewrite: head-only shedworking

Rewrite is a titchy shedlike atmosphere for your head from GamFratesi, adding some shedworkingesque privacy to the traditional office environment or as they put it "a kind of isolating working bubble" for openplan offices, public spaces or indeed the home. Here's what they say:
The screen is upholstered and covered with textile because of its visual and acoustic characteristics. It has a cave-like shape and creates a secure and intimate sphere, which partially closes out disturbing light and sounds. It has a doublesided acoustic function that protects against noise from the outside as well as from the inside.
Via Dezeen

Running a garden office business

We concentrate on shedworkers themselves on Shedworking, but it's important to remember that actually designing and bulding garden offices is a business (and indeed industry) in itself. There's an interesting case study in this month's Federation of Small Businesses magazine, First Voice by Tim Gillett, about the expansion of Smart Garden Offices. Focusing on the government's newly-launched Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme, it's well worth a read.

Shomera Solo

If 2008 was the year of the eco-friendly garden office, 2009 has been the year of the small garden office. Here's another model, the Solo, which suppliers Shomera say "will fit into even the smallest urban garden". Here's what they say about it:
Supplied with a 10-year structural guarantee, the Solo is constructed with the standards you’d expect from Shomera: multi-layer, timber frame construction, high insulation values and low-E double glazing. In addition, the Shomera Solo can be installed in a matter of days and does not need planning permission.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Judith Morgan: shedworker (nearly)

Wealth coach, accountant, property investor and investment agent Judith Morgan is also just about to become a shedworker and has been sharing the build (by Michael's Garden Offices) on twitter and on her blog. She's very pleased indeed so far with Michael Cullinane's workmanship and general approach to shedbuilding and observes he's just about to move down to Dorset with his business.
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Charterhall Road: Posh potting shed

A lovely design from Helen Lucas Architects who describe it as a "posh potting shed" combined with alterations to the landscape to provide better enjoyment of an already beautiful garden. It is built with cedar boarding, aluminium and glass, and the aluminium roof extends over the kitchen back door providing a covered route to the 'potting shed' for rainy days. It's well worth having a look around the rest of the site because while there are no other garden offices as such, there are plenty of excellent shedlike extensions and garden rooms.
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Monday's posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists.Click here for more details.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Birthday Palace Interior

Birthday Palace Interior, showing dormitories built by American GIs inside Saddam's Palace architecture, Tikrit, Iraq 2009, by Richard Mosse.
Via David Ruperti

The Bothy/Humble Designs: build update

Two of Shedworking's current favourite builds are at very different stages of construction. Graham Burnett has pretty much finished his Humble Design (above) and is now at the point of making it all look homely. Meanwhile the Cedral Weather-board siding that will be used to finish the outside of John Ketch's Bothy is now up. Do nip along and take a look at both of the projects.

Friday, October 23, 2009

The Mobile Office

The Mobile Office was constructed from discarded materials within a one block radius from the site. All the material was transported to the site with our bikes and a makeshift dolly. The only purchased items were the hardware used to hold it together. The mobile office has allowed us to consolidate all the furniture and shelving into one mobile unit. This has freed up our office space allowing us the flexibility to make large scale models and have spontaneous dance parties.
Time lapse here.
The Practice of Everyday Design Via MoCo Loco

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Cork Block and Sea Shelters scoop Shelter design prize

The winners of the Guggenheim/Sketchup Design it Shelter Competition have been announced, the People's Prize going to the Cork Block Shelter (a favourite of that other shed blog's)......and the Jury prize going to SeaShelter
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Richard Eyre names Shedworking as his favourite blog

Former Chief Executive at Capital Radio, ITV and Pearson TV and currently chairmen of the Internet Advertising Board Richard Eyre has rather nicely named Shedworking as his favourite blog at the i-level summit. Richard discussed the Shedworking approach at some length in an interesting article in Media Week last year when he looked at the rise of the amateur publishing on the internet. At one point he did say (though I think he meant it in a good way):
And indeed there are the downright loony, such as Shedworking, described as "the only daily updated guide to the lifestyles of shedworkers and those who work in shed-like atmospheres". Don't you love that - the planner sucks his pencil and says: "Nah, shedworkers is too narrow; it'll never fly. Better broaden the appeal - add shed-like environments."
But finished the article like this:
So what is happening around us, as control is democratised and seats at the table of power are shared among the millions rather than the privileged handful, is that the philosophical aspirations of one of the great political movements of the world are being fulfilled in arguably the most important theatre of society - the media.

Here, the democracy that Marx aimed to create by political process has been wrought by the empowerment and independence of the individual and powered by technology. Shedworking is more significant than it first appears.

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Geo: Sanctuary Garden Studios

New Zealand-based Sanctuary Garden Studios have an intriguing new model, the Geo. "It's made from the same colorsteel SIPs as our other models," says Sanctuary's Brent Wilson, "and we provide it with solar or mains power." It can be manufactured with ranchslider, bi-fold or French door entrance.
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Thursday posts are sponsored by Vivid Green, the low energy garden building specialists. Click here for more details

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Tales of Space and Time

The idea of a shed on wheels is a popular concept and here's a rather beautiful example from Heather and Ivan Morison (mentioned earlier today) called Tales of Space and Time. It's a Folkestone-based refurbished former army Bedford Green Goddess fire truck, customised as a kind of 'escape vehicle' using plenty of Douglas Fir to include living space and a small library of science fiction (hence the nod to HG Wells, who lived in Folkestone, in its title). Photos: Wig Worland.The Morisons have also been shortlisted for the Wales section of the Artists Taking the Lead project and hope to build three new tai unnos in Wales. Here's what they say:
The function of each will be decided upon locally; it could be a simple shelter, a meeting room, a home, a meditative place, a community space or even a dovecote perhaps. They will also be fabricated locally, highlighting and developing existing skills and craftspeople, with each new ty unnos being celebrated in the final communal raising of the building.

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Wednesday's posts are sponsored by The Garden Room Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here.

Nomadic Architectures II: Sheds, Bothies and Retreats

An unmissable talk featuring John 'Shedman' Davies will look at the phenomenon of the shed, why it punches above its architectural weight, and why it's such a meaningful social space. The event is part of the Art & Architecture autumn lecture series and also features Ivan Morison (who works with Heather Morison on shedlike structures such as the wooden cabin called Fantasy Island in their own arboretum pictured above) and Thomas Pausz who will talk about his work with the Manor Garden Allotmenteers whose sheds were demolished to make way for 2012 Olympic buildings. The talk is on Monday, November 2, 6.30 for 7pm, at The Gallery, 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ.
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Wednesday's posts are sponsored by The Garden Room Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here.

The Woodshed

The Woodshed is a sculpture studio and community art space founded by Doug King-Smith in the grounds of Bowden House near Totnes, Devon. There are many workshops available, including building with cob. Click below to hear Doug being interviewed about the Woodshed.

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Wednesday's posts are sponsored by The Garden Room Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here.

Hut 33 - series 3

Just a quick nudge to remind you that series 3 of Hut 33 - the codebreaking comedy set at Bletchley Park in 1941/42 - is back on the airwaves (sadly not available on Listen Again), every Wednesday morning at 11.30am on BBC Radio 4. Here's the rundown on next week's show, Back to Your Post:
Everything German is under suspicion in 1942 and Bletchley Park is no exception. Charles has German relatives and is threatened with internment. Will Archie help his colleague and can Charles avoid Minka's attentions, now she knows there is a true German in their midst?
Hut 33 writer James Cary is blogging about the show too.
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Wednesday's posts are sponsored by The Garden Room Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Panoramic View & Inside Outside Garden Offices

The competition to design a garden office at Secrets of Shed Building is throwing up some fabulous ideas. Above is the Panoramic View Office by Ignatius from Bangalore who has gone for a gazebo-style look with large windows which could be replaced wire mesh or sliding glass doors depending on the local climate. Below is the Inside Outside Office Shed by Jorge Fontan from New York which has two sets of sliding glass doors to open up fully into the garden as well as a roof deck.

Home Business Survey (& win an HP notebook)

Each year Enterprise Nation produces a valuable Home Business Report that offers facts and figures on the number of people starting and growing a business from home. It also offers a snapshot of what home business owners are thinking and doing. This year’s report will be launched at the Enterprise Nation Conference on the UK’s first ever Home Enterprise Day on November 20. If you take part in the survey for the report, you also put your name in the hat to win a free HP notebook (of course HP started in a garage): it only takes five minutes so please nip along and take part by clicking here.

Airstream: PanAmerica Travel Trailer

The PanAmerica is a new-ish 34ft Airstream travel trailer which includes a built-in garage bay which as the makers themselves say can be used "as a mobile office, a base for show dogs, or even an artist's studio". Here's a bit more bumph from them:
A gull-wing exterior door with slide-out ramp is incorporated into the trailer's tail, and a pass-through door in the bulkhead with porthole window offers easy access to the living quarters. Choose to equip your garage bay with any combination of storage lockers, cabinets, tabletop work areas and tie downs. And of course, electrical outlets and speakers linked to the trailer's crystal-clear sound system come standard.
Thanks to James Westwater for the alert

Monday, October 19, 2009

Bus office

Hoogwoud-based 4 U 2 in Holland decided to add some shedworking space to their offices by buying an old Volvo city bus, cutting it in half and then, well, adding it on. Photo by Ruurd Berendes.
Via Superuse.org, a online community of designers, architects and everybody else who is interested in inventive ways of recycling. Thanks to Lloyd 'Treehugger' Alter for the alert
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Monday's posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists.Click here for more details.

Cottontails: shedworkers


Cottontails is a small family run mail order toy shop established in 2002 and run by mother and daughter team Mary and Charlotte (if you're a Moulin Roty fan, then this is definitely a site to head for). "So far it is proving to be a beautiful, peaceful place to work," says Charlotte. "We keep some of the smaller items and soft toys in the office, with the bigger items and things in bulk held in a separate storage facility nearby. It's useful to have the toys on hand like this as I get calls most days from customers wanting some specific bit of information - like the length of a bunny's ears or the exact pattern on a mouse's dress - so it's good to have the things in front of me, where I can pick them up and handle them, and not too far away in a warehouse."
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Monday's posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists.Click here for more details.

Mobo computer station

Space is always at a premium in a garden office so the Mobo computer station could come in handy: essentially it's a plastic tray that fits onto the arms of your work chair and turns it into an "ergonomic computer station".
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Monday's posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists.Click here for more details.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Shed calendars and Christmas cards

Always forgetting dates? Never sure exactly when National Shed Week 2010 will be held? Worry no more, because those fine folk at Transglobal Emporium have put together their annual shed-based calendar for your delight and delectation (above is January 2010). They are also selling shedlike Christmas cards
featuring a variety of sheds in the snow. I know it's a little early to start stocking up, but please do support them.
Via Shedblog