Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Shedworking on BBC Breakfast

A great piece about shedworking on BBC Breakfast today featuring the exhibition at the V&A, video of George Bernard Shaw's revolving garden office, Philip Pullman's old shed (now owned by illustrator Ted Dewan), the shed owned by Hamish Thompson and me, pictured above (and the Shedworking book). You can see the whole thing here on the BBC site.
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The Pod

Built in the Lake District National Park, the Pod is an insulated wooden shedworking atmosphere that's currently mainly in use as a kind of 'wooden tent' at various sites around the country. With a floor area 8ft wide by 9ft long, sheep wool insulation, attractive porch and curved roof (designed specifically to reduce noise levels from the pouring rain with foil layer to fight against the beating summer sun), it would make a perfect garden office too. The whole thing, which comes from Newfoundland Leisure Lodges, is transported by special truck but it can also be built onto a single axle "static" type chassis with removable draw bar.
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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Get your shed onto BBC Breakfast - but be quick!

The nice folk at BBC Breakfast will be talking about the Shedworking book, garden offices and sheds in general at 6.50am, 7.50am and indeed 8.50am tomorrow (Wednesday). They're also inviting viewers to submit their own sheds to their Flickr group, a selection of which I'm assuming will make it to the screen, and they're using the Twitter hash tag of #myshed from now onwards. This will be a great buildup to the actual National Shed Week which starts on July 5. So do nip along and, in the words of that other shed blog, share your shed.
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Freya Blackwood: shedworker

Australia-based Freya Blackwood has won this year’s prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration. In a nice interview for The Herald she talks about her life as a shedworker. Here's a snippet:
She works in a garden studio that is “too hot in summer and too cold in winter” and says her daughter stops her from seeing any work problem as insurmountable.
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#swapwordinfilmwithshed trending on Twitter


There was a remarkable spontaneous eruption of shedbased tweeting yesterday evening on Twitter using the #swapwordinfilmwithshed hash tag. It was not started by the usual suspect but bodes well for another shedbased Twitter experiment to be launched during National Shed Week...
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Tuesday posts are sponsored by The Home Office Company, manufacturers of unique garden rooms since 1998. Now in 10 exciting new colours. Click here for more details.

Southdown shepherds' huts

Specialist barn builders and garden office suppliers Rookery Barns have launched a new range of buildings suitable for shedworking, the Southdown shepherds' hut (see here for an example in situ). It's a traditional look with cast-iron wheels, curved roof and wood-burning stove, all speciifically designed so they can be used as a home office or studio since they come with full insulation and electrics. Other features include copper or zinc roofs, oak flooring and double glazed windows with optional kitchenette and compact bathroom. Rookery Barns managing director Robin Welland-Jones said “ We wanted to retain the quirky charm of the shepherd’s hut whilst providing high quality and comfortable accommodation that suits our clients’ contemporary lives.”
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Monday, June 28, 2010

Shedworking in sunny weather

Shedworkers are undeniably the most inventive of homeworkers: here is Helen Stevens' husband making the most of the weather by shedworking outside the garden office while watching the latest Formula 1 race inside it.
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Shedworking in your car

Limousines World is adding a shedworkingesque element to its luxury car range with the Executive Mobile Office SUV. Inside, passengers can revel in their own mobile office with desks, Captain chairs, interweb connection, privacy divider and, er, bar and television. The fitout can be built on a Cadillac Escalade, Mercedes GL, Lincoln Navigator, Infiniti QX56 and Ford Expedition.
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Vermont Garden Studio

This is a lovely garden office with an intriguing design featured at tiny-house-living.com. It's a 6 x 8 shedlike atmosphere built using mainly salvaged materials (including rusty barn roofing) for just $200 and featuring a built-in desk/bench.
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Sunday, June 27, 2010

Holy Island boat/work shed

A lovely shot by Ian Britton of an upturned fishing boat used as a work shed on Lindisfarne to raise the spirits of all England football supporters today...
Thanks to the many readers who have asked for this shot over the last couple of years. This one is courtesy: FreeFoto.com
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Saturday, June 26, 2010

The dangers of summer shedworking...

My garden shed office has become a menagerie. There has been a cricket exodus and it sounds like I am working in the jungleless than a minute ago via web


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Canopy & Stars: shedlike holidays

Canopy & Stars has a fabulous range of shedlike holiday structures, curated by Alastair 'Special Places' Sawday including the marvellous Ekopod on Bodmin Moor (above) and with a particular interest in treehouses (future plans include a Georgian treehouse). There's a marvellous gallery here. For a firsthand account of The Wagon, one of the other possibilities from the company, nip across to Scott Pack's blog.
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Friday, June 25, 2010

How to move your garden office

We talked recently about what to do with your garden office when you move house. Catherine Casey of Surrey/Hampshire-based Market Inroads which supplies SMEs with marketing direction and support points out there is a simple solution..."Reading about the predicament of Klaus and Heidi I would like to mention that there is a way of being able to take your office with you when you move house," she writes. "My office is a shepherd’s hut made by Southdown and because it is on wheels I won’t have to leave it behind when I decide to move." Pictured below is Catherine at work in her shedlike atmosphere.
It's been a while since we discontinued Shepherd's Hut Tuesday but it's worth a return visit if this is the kind of shedworking you might enjoy.
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Shedworking book reviewed in The Independent

Today's Independent carries a long review of the Shedworking book by Jay Merrick (disclosure: I work for the newspaper though didn't talk to Merrick for the piece). Here's a snippet:
Shedworking's author, Alex Johnson, has cabin fever: he's positively messianic about sheddy virtues – and it's hard not to feel a frisson of anticipatory pleasure at the thought of settling down to work in, say, the Penthouse shed designed by Eco Green; or in a svelte, super-modernist OfficePOD; or in one of Room Outdoor's frightfully posh Cuberno garden offices. And here's what the anonymous blogger known as Man In A Shed had to say about his Damascene – and faintly politically incorrect – shed moment: "About five years ago, I found myself away from home, in a hotel room, for the first time since we had started a family. I suddenly realised I could hear myself think again. In short, I needed somewhere to hang out, a wooden cave."
You can read the whole piece, which is an Editor's Choice special pick, here.
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Friday posts are sponsored by Extraspace, the flat-packed, man-portable expandable garden building experts. Click here for more details

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Win a V&A Small Spaces Catalogue (competition)

As we mentioned yesterday, the catalogue for the V&A's 1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces exhibition is a real treat: 48 pages, 71 colour illustrations, and all introduced by the exhibition's curator, Abraham Thomas. We have one to give away in our easy-to-enter competition. Simply send us a photograph featuring your copy of the just published shedworking book Shedworking: The Alternative Workplace Revolution and our favourite will scoop the prize. It could be you reading it, the book placed strategically in your own shed or garden office, or some other completely different idea. Be as creative as you like. Usual Shedworking competition rules apply. Closing date for entries is July 10. Email entries (or an URL where they can be seen) to shedworking@gmail.com.
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New 3D TV technology invented in a garden office

Engineer John Braithwaite has come up with 3D television technology that does away with those weird glasses, according to The Scotsman. He has been working on his invention, Realview, in his garden office in the Clyde Valley (pictured above). More details of the technology at The Scotsman article.
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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Render ideas for a garden office

Shedworking reader Jon Busby has a question for you knowledgeable folk: do you have any pointers about different and original render ideas for a garden office with a breeze block base? Jon say he is trying to find ideas that will make it look more organic or architectural. Please leave your suggestions in the comment box below.
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1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces (review)


Rural Studio, Alabama, USA - Woodshed from Victoria and Albert Museum on Vimeo.
The Shedworking staff decamped to the 1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces exhibition at the V&A in London yesterday where we joined John Coupe from Secrets of Shed Building for a guided tour of the show by its curator Abraham Thomas. The main elements are seven small structures scattered around the museum ranging from Rural Studio's Woodshed (see video above) to an elevated Japanese teahouse - my personal favourite - and an incredible wooden tower of books.

Terunobu Fujimori Beetle's House - final finishing touches from Architects Build Small Spaces on Vimeo.
None of the architects involved are household names (though regular readers of Shedworking will recognise some) but they are extremely talented and inventive with a very impressive attention to detail. There are also informative video screens and a dozen more excellent design models on display which didn't quite make it to the construction stage. There are no specific shedworking structures although, as John pointed out, it was a little like looking at a fashion catwalk show in the expectation that some of the ideas will find their way into more mass market structures.

Thomas - who kindly said that his research for the exhibition included a nose around the Shedworking site - explained that key elements of the show are collaboration and engagement. The architects (none of them UK-based) have worked for the first time with a number of contractors whom they have admired from afar, while their ideas centre very much on providing an interactive space for visitors to explore - you are actively encouraged to wander around inside all the exhibits rather than simply look at drawings and scale models.

In short, it's a marvellous exhibition, unmissable for anybody interested in shedlike atmospheres and microarchitecture: I'll be taking my children to it and I know they will love it. Even if you can't make it there in person, there is a fantastic site online covering all the builds featuring blogs and videos plus lots of photos at their Flickr pages. There is also a lovely (and engagingly small) catalogue which I'll be giving away in a competition tomorrow here on Shedworking.

1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces runs until August 30 and is free with various talks, tours and lectures scheduled (see the #smallspaces hash tag on Twitter for details). Some of the structures will be sold at auction in September.
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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Shedworkers do well in Shed of the Year category awards

It's a bumper year for shedworkers in the fourth National Shed of the Year awards. In the category sections which have just been announced on Shedblog there are several garden offices among the winners including Nicola Brown of In The Shed (pictured above) in the Studio category. Winner of the Workshop category was Artemis Russell (pictured below).

And in the official Garden Office category, it's Dominic Jones' One Grand Designs.

Now the judges are arguing around the virtual judging table about exactly who will walk off with the top prize...
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Monday, June 21, 2010

Fab Lab

While undeniably offering a somewhat shedlike atmosphere, the FabLab House on show in Madrid for the European Solar Decathlon at the moment is not technically a garden office - but its design and principles could easily be transferred to a smaller building. The whole thing - a zero energy wooden home with masses of solar panels on the roof - is on three stilted legs to improve ventilation.
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Shed in a tree

Shed art by konarska-konarski in Warsaw. No tree was hurt in the making of this art.
Via designboom
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Tiny House Living: new issue out

Tiny House Living is a weekly online newsletter about, well, living in tiny houses and shedlike atmosopheres. The latest one has just come out and if you haven't come across it before, please do nip across and check it out.
Photo from Whittled Down which is featured in the current issue.
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