Observatory sheds

While most people use their garden offices to work in, many also make use of them as leisure buildings. One of the most common bespoke shedlike structures is an observatory, such as the simple one from Taylors Garden Buildings above and the homemade one belonging to Starman below. As he explains:

"The plan was to have the roof slide off on runners, and after a few weeks we were there. The roof itself is tongued-and grooved timber, covered by thick gauge pond liner, a material which is impervious to more or less anything. It runs on thick plastic wheels which fit inside a shallow channel running the total length of walls-plus-runners. The weight of the roof is sufficient to keep the wheels within their channels, but light enough to be moved with one hand. The runners themselves extend out (southward) for a distance about equal to the width of the side walls, so that when the roof is fully slid away, the shed is open to the sky."

Similarly, theLinnhe Observatory below has a roof section mounted on a wooden frame with eight wheels to be rolled backwards on rails away from the shed underneath.Another good site, again with plenty of details of how the build went step by step, is David's Astronomy which also has several other links to observatory builds around the interweb. Here's his own, below.There are even companies who specialise in providing observatory sheds, such as the finely titled Alexanders Observatories who claim to be the UK's leading supplier of quality roll-off observatories. Here's their 10 by 8 in situ.Or you may prefer something which looks like the big boys' observatories: here is Charles Baetsen's lovely model (plans from his site).And here's a similar one from the excellent Gregory La Vardera.

The Observatory artist studio

Designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley, The Observatory is a mobile artist studio and workshop built for SPUD (Space Placemaking and Urban Design) and designed to "encourage interaction between artists and their audience, through a blurring of public and private and inside and outside spaces". And as regular readers of Shedworking will know, we especially love a garden office that revolves...

The Observatory - Stop-Motion Rotating Film from FCBStudios on Vimeo.

The exterior is clad in dark charred timber panels, with smooth lighter woods inside as well as a rope screen, wood-burning stove, solar panel, and rainwater harvesting. The Observatory is on location at four spots in the South of England, Winchester Science Centre, Lymington Salt Marshes, Mottisfont Abbey Hampshire. Here's a nice video of it in Lymington Salt Marshes in the New Forest National Park.

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Home observatory

Here's a follow-up to our recent look at shedlike observatories, a home observatory from Wendy Evans Joseph Architecture in Ghent, New York, set rather splendidly in hayfields. Open cedar slats on the outside, maple plywood sheeting on the inside, all on top of a concrete pier.A Bill Kratz spot.

Working from home: latest UK data

The latest report from the Economics Observatory about working from home post-pandemic indicates that working from home is here to stay, with clear benefits for many people, in particular less time spent commuting. According to the report's author, senior research associate Charlie Meyrick from the University of Brisol: "Should current trends continue, it seems unlikely that we will ever return fully to pre-pandemic work patterns. Compared with before the pandemic, there are now over five million more people working remotely in the UK. This is roughly the equivalent of the entire working population of Austria."

The figures show the largest growth in homeworking has been in Scotland where it has doubled (see graph top). In England, the highest percentage of people working from home lived in London, followed by the South East, and then the East. The lowest increases were in the North East, and Yorkshire/Humber.

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Awardwinning new film made in a shed

The Astronomer's Sun is a lovely short stop motion film made in a shed in Ilkley by Jessica Cope and Simon Cartwright about a young man who visits an abandoned observatory to confront memories of his past and follow his father on a journey into the unknown. It's already won the Northern Futures Award and is getting international recognition. You can see a short video about it on the BBC site here and take a look at the official site here. There's also an excellent blog which has plenty of details about the ups and downs of working in a shed.


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Choosing a shed - Taylors Garden Buildings

Norfolk-based Taylors Garden Buildings are one of the biggest names in the business, established in 1953. They cover pretty much all the bases, manufacturing, supplying and installing both their own large range of sheds and shedlike atmospheres (see here for Shedworking's review of their beach hut) as well as other companies' products. Among their client list is Big Brother, Fujitsu, NHS direct and Emmerdale TV studios. Taylors say they are committed to being as environmentally friendly as possible producing green roofs, bee houses, compost toilets and cordwood buildings. It's hard to pick favourites, but I like the Mansfield Garden Office above and the observatory shed below.Taylors also very kindly were a major sponsor of the first National Shed Week last year.

Daily Mirror gets behind National Shed Week

As we get closer to National Shed Week, the coverage is starting to really gather pace. Wilco at the Shedblog reports that the Daily Mirror is planning a double page colour spread devoted to the country's finest sheds. Mirror journalist Matt Roper says he is looking for people who have turned their sheds into something unusual (such as a church, pub, temple, observatory, solarium, etc) - they'll come and take a picture of the ones they like best and have a quick chat with the owners. So please send Matt an email with your contact details by clicking here.

Shedservatory

Shedservatory - Unexpected from Garden #shedoftheyear
An observatory garden office with a telescope inside the roof. Could this be Shed of the Year 2020? ------------------------------------------------------

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Help Historic England document shed history

Historic England has launched a crowdsourcing project, asking people to contribute their knowledge to augment what's known about the official list of England’s 400,000 most significant historic places
 
The List began in 1882, when the first powers of protection were established. It has almost 400,000 entries: barrows and bunkers, palaces and pigsties, plague crosses and piers, tower blocks and tombstones, cathedrals, windmills and rollercoasters. And of course, garden offices, sheds, and other shedlike structures.

Amon them is a listed building in Gloucestershire that witnessed a momentous scientific breakthrough. The Jenner Hut (pictured above), sometimes called the “Temple of Vaccinia” is where Dr Edward Jenner performed his first vaccination against smallpox in 1796, on his gardener’s 8-year-old son. This small and simple hut is dubbed the birthplace of public health and Historic England would like people to share their photos of the unique building.

Also, Perrot’s Folly, The Monument or The Observatory, a Grade II listed building standing 96-foot above the surrounding suburban sprawl of Edgbaston, Birmingham. It is thought that JRR Tolkien, who spent much of his life in Birmingham and lived in a street near the tower as a child, was possibly inspired by it for the Two Towers in his Lord of the Rings trilogy. Built in 1758, the Folly (pictured) has been used for many purposes over the years, from a hunting retreat to a weather station, though it isn’t clear why it was built. One theory is that the owner, John Perrott, built the tower so that he could see his wife’s grave, fifteen miles away. Do you know more about the Folly?

To add your contributions to the List, visit www.historicengland.org.uk/etl
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Garden office in a water tower

Here's an ingenious shedworking space, a 1920s watertower refurbished by architect Geoffrey Holton and turned into a garden office. The tower needed considerable work (including actually stablising it and adding windows) and the interior was built using recycled and salvaged wood. The original and atmospheric tank is to be turned into a children's observatory. “The whole project has the spirit of sustainable building,” Holton told Mary Jo Bowling at Sunset. “We all saw the value of saving what was there.” 
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Around the shedworld

The Green Workplace reports on flexible 4-day weeks being introduced in Utah... check out a shedworking primer in the new edition of the slick WHY (Work Home You) magazine... Line of Site have a great new competition to design a Northern Lights observatory... Enterprise Nation has some interior design tips... Shedworld has something for the weekend... Gecko Yurts (above) look rather fetching... Chief Home Officer discusses compressed work weeks... Emma Jones, currently quadripartite in her locality, gives her top 10 tips about setting up a home office... Kits and Mortar is embarking on an ambitious magazine review programme... Web Worker Daily ponders coworking vs noworking... Shedblog has been dicing with death... there's a fantastic blog dedicated to Hut 33... Shedman has launched not one but two blogs this week. Blimey... today is your last chance to vote for your Shed of the Year... help to support Shedworking by clicking on the button below and making a small pledge

Eastbourne beach huts competition shortlist

The shortlist for Eastbourne’s The Huts beach hut competition has been announced (more details at the official site here). The aim is to "create new visitor attractions and enhance Eastbourne’s reputation as a town embracing culture and design".

The architects’ shorlist is:

* Alvaro Fernandez from specialists in public library, automotive retailing workplace and higher education design - Bissett Adams for their design Pipe Dreams (above)
* Pol Gallagher from the winner of the 2012 competition to design the sculptural entrance to Dublin City University - ZAP Architecture for The Observatory (top)
* Stephen Foley from Dublin based SFA whose previous work includes Avondale Park Pavilion and the award winning Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies for his design What Unearthed? (pictured bottom)
* Jacob Low from Jak Studio, based in London and Sarajevo, whose recent projects include the Listening Project Booth for BBC Radio 4 for their entry Spyglass (pictured second from bottom)
* Alpa Depani and James Marrinan for The Shingle Hut
* James Hampton from the London based architectural and landscape design practice Periscope for The Driftwood Hut
* George King from London and Melbourne based George King Architects who created the beach hut House of Mirrors on Bondi Beach for his proposal Star Gazers’ Hut
* Ewen Miller and Kim Smith from the RIBA Award winning Calder Peel for Eastbourne Reborn

The finalists in the community category are local artist Lucy Dean , a group entry from students at Sussex Downs College under Sheila Hay and a group entry from Age Concern under Claire Shoosmith.

The shortlist of entries will be exhibited to the public March 9-14 at Gowland Court, 137 - 139 Seaside Road, Eastbourne. The outcome of the competition will be five bespoke designed iconic huts which will be sited at key locations in Devonshire ward, to the east of the pier, forming part of the route of the Coastal Culture Trail linking the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne, De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill and Jerwood Gallery in Hastings.

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