Thursday, May 30, 2013

Archimodpod



Tea With An Architect and mod105 introduce the archimodpod, a mobile consultation booth.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Poor planning costs nation's entrepreneurs £1.4 billion

Not each of course, but shedworkers, homeworkers and other small businesses in Britain are facing a potential £1.4bn annual loss of revenue by failing to safeguard against business threats, according to new research.

The Lloyds TSB Insurance Big Issues for Small Businesses report revealed 1.7 million (38%) microbusinesses were affected by significant incidents such as theft, vandalism or damage in the last year alone. Following this almost a third (31%) of those affected were unable to operate fully for longer than a week.

For around one in five (19%) it took up to a month to be fully operational, potentially risking a further £3.4bn3 loss.

The research - which polled British businesses with ten or fewer employees - revealed that just under one in 10 (7%) owners who have experienced an incident in the last year worried their business wouldn't survive as a result. Yet over a third (36%) of the nation's small business owners haven't taken any measures to protect their business.

Damien McGarrigle, head of business insurance at Lloyds TSB Insurance, said: "These businesses are the backbone of the economy, but many are unnecessarily leaving themselves exposed and vulnerable without adequate protection in place. Unforeseen incidents are likely to have greater impact on a small business, which could jeopardise its future, putting a strain on owners and their families if they are underinsured. Making sure appropriate insurance cover is in place safeguards against the main risks and liabilities, leaving business owners better positioned for success."

Moreover, for more than a quarter (26%) of microbusiness owners, weekends and days off are no escape from the worries of running a business. The poll found that one in five (17%) of those aged 35-44 worry that their business is having a negative impact on family relations, compared to just one in 20 (6%) aged 55 and over.

Work life balance revealed a similar trend with almost three-quarters (69%) of 35-44 year-old respondents confessing to working on weekends or days off. This decreased with age, with just half (56%) of those aged 45-54, and 42% of those aged 55 and over admitting to working out of office hours. More than one in 10 (12%) said that they were reliant upon family members to enable them to run their business, such as through the provision of childcare. 
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Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Stable Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Cue Gardens



Regular readers will know that as well as being interested in microarchitectural atmospheres, I also play snooker regularly (St Albans snooker club on a Wednesday night if anyone fancies a frame) so was delighted to read in the Shropshire Star about Dave Evans' shed. He calls it Cue Gardens since, while maybe not ideal for full-time shedworking, it does contain a full-sized snooker table (including a baize on which Steve Davis has played, fact fans). And a darts board and fridge. Here's a snippet:
“I had the opportunity to buy the table from the local club I used to play in and it had been in the garage for a while. I had the shed built especially for the table about two years ago. I have a few people round and we play a few frames and have a chat and a few drinks. It’s a lot easier, we can play snooker and it saves us having to pay over the odds for a beer down the pub."
Well worth a browse. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Francis Pryor: shedworker


Francis Pryor is best known for his work as an archaeologist and his extremely readable books on prehistoric books (Britain BC is on the shelves at Shedworking HQ). He also has a novel in the pipeline called The Lifer's Club with the fine shed-friendly folk at Unbound which is well worth your crowdfunding pounds. And now he has tidied up his shed so that he can become a shedworker. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homestead Timber Buildings - Manufacturers of Quality Timber Buildings

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Sunny artist's studio




A nice shedworking build (with plenty of pictures and more details at their site) by Historic Shed of a new art studio for a client who had been sketching ideas for the build for several years. It's a 12′ x 12′ shed with paired French doors on three sides and a 4′ roof extension on the front supported by large brackets with a seating area. The shed has a metal roof and cypress siding. -----------------------------------------------------
Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Stable Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Kevin McCloud charity talk - 'Voyages in my Shed'


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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

Monday, May 20, 2013

Gill Lewis: shedworker


A nice piece in the Daily Telegraph by writer Gill Lewis about the delights of working in her garden treehouse in Somerset and the company of squirrels (click the link to her site which shows how keen she is on it from the first page). Here's a snippet:
"When they [her children] go to school I clamber up here with my coffee and a couple of biscuits and write for hours, away from the phone and the doorbell. My books are about animals and their relationship to humans, and being up in the tree, with the squirrels, connects me to nature. The area is full of deer, foxes, buzzards, starlings and badgers. You don't have to go on safari to see amazing wildlife. My ultimate tree house would be one of those capsules you see in glossy magazines, somewhere really high and remote – with a butler."
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Friday, May 17, 2013

National Work From Home Day


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The number of people working from garden offices and their home in general has increased by 13 per cent in the last five years, according to a new TUC analysis of official figures published today to mark National Work From Home Day, organised by WorkWise UK.

The TUC analysis of unpublished data from the Labour Force Survey shows that just over four million employees usually worked at home in 2012, a rise of 470,000 since 2007. The South East, Scotland and Wales have seen the sharpest rise in homeworking over the last five years.

While nearly two-thirds of people who work from home are male, an increasing number of women are also making this career move. According to the research, the majority of homeworking jobs created in the last five years have gone to women. The rise in female homeworking is partly due to the fact that almost nine in ten of these new jobs are part-time, says the TUC.

In addition to the four million people who usually work from home, many millions more occasionally work from home, says the TUC.

The sharp rise in homeworking in spite of the recession confirms that this new way of working has become an essential part of the UK labour market. Technological progress and the rise of the services sector, where many jobs do not require specialised machinery or face-to-face contact with colleagues or customers, have helped fuel this growth, says the TUC.

TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “The recession may have fuelled rising unemployment and put pressure on flexible working practices, but homeworking has continued to thrive and grow. Over four million people usually work from home, while many millions more occasionally do so. The sheer scale of homeworking proves how easily it can be done but there are still too many employers who are reluctant to allow staff to work away from the office or the shop floor.

“Of course there are challenges with homeworking. It requires employers to trust staff and people can feel isolated if the relationship is not managed properly. But these issues are easily dealt with through smart employment relations, which unions can help with. With government figures showing a further 4.5 million people would like to work from home more often there is still much more that employers can do to meet this unmet demand for more flexible working.”

WorkWise UK’s chief executive Phil Flaxton said: “The best way to manage employees working from home or remotely is by encouraging independence of thought and action, and developing continuous communication, supported by regular face-to-face meetings. This can be by video/conference calls or other online tools so that experiences, ideas, and success and performance issues can still be shared. The whole management ethos has to become much more open, less hierarchical and more trusting.

“The key issues for success still surround management styles and the acceptance of change. Building a culture of information sharing and creating trust takes time and careful planning. By carefully choosing and training the virtual workforce and by structuring the organisation to make best use of its virtual employees, most organisations should be able to see an improvement in productivity of between 8 and 15 per cent.”
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Friday posts are sponsored by Warwick Buildings, manufacturers of outstanding quality timber buildings. Click here for more information.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

The Freedom Room



Not sure that a shedlike atmosphere inspired by the size of a prison cell is going to appeal to that many people but it's an intriguing idea, a 116-square-foot 'tiny home' designed by Aldo Cibic, Tommaso CorĂ  and Marco Tortoioli Ricci of Cibic Workshop who also asked inmates from a high security prison in Italy for design advice. Via Huffington Post with more information and photos at Architizer.


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Homestead Timber Buildings - Manufacturers of Quality Timber Buildings

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Artist's studio in Aberdeenshire



Dab Den have just completed an artist studio in Stathdon, Aberdeenshire, with a stunning view of the river below, definitely a room with a view. "The customer was looking for somewhere to do her artwork," explains Kat Byers from Dab Den. "There is a fantastic view down the river so the position of the Dab Den takes advantage of this. There is a Belfast sink in the built-in cupboard to allow her to do her paintings. No planning was required but building warrant was, due to the sink connecting into the existing drainage system, which means it is built to the standard of a new build house. There is also a lot of decking stretching out the front of the den, so when the bi-folding doors are fully open there is a very spacious floor area stretching out to the view beyond. The materials used are Siberian larch cladding and the doors are powder coated aluminium, with a thermal break in the frame to assist in obtaining a 1.3w/m2K u-value."




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

Monday, May 13, 2013

How will Permitted Development changes affect shedworkers? (updated)

Another great post by Shedworking's 'go to' person for details on the planning technicalities of shedworking, Lynn Fotheringham from Inside Out Buildings in which she poses (and then answers) the question, will the permitted development changes that come into force on May 30 affect people who work at home either in their house or in a garden office? Well worth a read if you're considering going down the garden office route.

And it's also worth reading Richard Grace from Garden Structures Ltd (formerly Aarco) on the subject of planning permission.
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Shed Sunday: shed card


With Kraft brown fleck recycled envelope in cellophane sleeve. Available from Have a Gander on etsy. They also have some cracking tea towels.

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

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Crowdfunding a beach hut

"To build a center piece for the first Teignmouth beach hut raising. The structure has been designed by a young multicultural London design practice with a history in initiating social/community projects. The installation will be manufactured while the design team are in residence in the town of Teignmouth and then will be constructed on site by the design team. It will remain for 6 months then be taken down for the winter season and stored to be reassembled for future summer seasons."
More details of this great Kickstarter project here. ----------------------------------------------------------
Saturday posts are sponsored by Warwick Buildings, manufacturers of outstanding quality timber buildings. Click here for more information.

Thursday, May 09, 2013

Get voting for Shed of the Year 2013


It's time to start voting. As always there are a number of categories so make every vote count - and naturally we would encourage you to vote in particular in the Garden Office category. Overall, there are nearly 2,000 sheds up for the awards so do take your time and have a good browse. Voting shuts at midnight on May 31 but don't leave it until the last minute to vote - then the category winners voted for by the public will be discussed by the judges, Sarah Beeny, Kevin McCloud, me, the organiser of the event Uncle Wilco and  last year's winner John. The winner will be announced in National Shed Week which starts July 1. Click here to vote.

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Homestead Timber Buildings - Manufacturers of Quality Timber Buildings

Wednesday, May 08, 2013

Garden offices at Grand Designs Live


There are numerous garden office suppliers at the Grand Designs Live show this week at ExCel Docklands. Among them is Roger Hedges from Garden Spaces.

"Many people are very interested in our concept of the indoor/outdoor space connection to make a garden room really work in our climate," he says. "People are also surprised by the amount of internal headroom we can create without compromising thermal performance due to our clever floor and ceiling structure that enables us to achieve up to 2.2m of internal headroom and still meet the 2.5m height requirement to avoid planning on most occasions."

Among others who are there this week and have blogged about the experience are Charlie Dalton from Smart Garden Offices and Mark Burton from Tiny House UK. -----------------------------------------------------
Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Stable Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here

Tuesday, May 07, 2013

The Politician's Husband: shedworking drama



The garden office is coming of age in BBC drama and no mistake. While David Tennant and Emily Watson are the supposed stars of the corporation's latest politico drama The Politician's Husband, what's increasingly taking centre stage is the couple's garden office. In episode one, Emily Watson's character Freya (a rising star at Westminster) is shown to be a shedworker, but in episode two the couple swap offices and her husband Aiden (a falling star at Westminster) takes over at the bottom of the garden. There are some harsh words said about shedworking and being "banished to the shed" but we'll gloss over that and simply revel in prime time television garden office coverage. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Friday, May 03, 2013

Mark Owen: shedworker

The popular Take That singer has taken the BBC on a tour of his garden office - called The Rabbit Hutch - as he launches his new album The Art of Doing Nothing.

Thursday, May 02, 2013

The One Show: Shed of the Year and Tiny Houses


The BBC's The One Show featured fellow Shed of the Year judge Kevin McCloud yesterday discussing the annual shedlike extravaganza. It also had a really good piece on Mark Burton from Tiny House UK and his Tiny House. You can catch up with it on the iPlayer thingy for the next week (link) and the shed talk starts around the 2 minute 45 second mark briefly, then picks up again at 55 minutes 20 seconds when the presenters, Mark, Kevin and Lenny Henry explore the inside of the Tiny House extremely enthusiastically.

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Homestead Timber Buildings - Manufacturers of Quality Timber Buildings

Wednesday, May 01, 2013

Rosy Cheeks: gardens for children's hospices

Rosy Cheeks, a fundraising appeal to create children’s hospice gardens around the UK, is launched today by the Greenfingers charity whose chairman is friend of Shedworking, Matthew Wilson of Clifton Nurseries and TV fame.

The Rosy Cheeks Appeal aims to raise £750,000 over the next 24 months to build at least 10 new gardens in children’s hospices around the country. Greenfingers has already designed and delivered 39 hospice gardens and is dedicated to creating further beautiful and inspiring outdoors spaces for children with life-limiting conditions to enjoy with family, friends and siblings.

More details at their website. There's nothing specifically mentioned about sheds, but I'm sure that any donations of sheds by UK suppliers would be extremely welcome. -----------------------------------------------------
Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Stable Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here