Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Dovecote Studio





Dovecote Studio, Haworth Tompkins's build on the Snape Maltings campus in Suffolk, has a won a roomful of awards for its loveliness. Built into the ruined dovecoate on site, the shedworking atmosphere for artists and musicians was craned in. Among the many delights is the mezzanine platform with a writing desk and window looking out over the marshes towards the sea.  Here's what they say about it:
"Only the minimum necessary brickwork repairs were carried out to stabilise the existing ruin prior to the new structure being inserted. Decaying existing windows were left alone and vegetation growing over the dovecote was protected to allow it to continue a natural process of ageing and decay. The interior walls and ceiling of the space are lined with spruce plywood to create a timber 'box' within the Cor-ten shell."
Lots more excellent photos at their site.
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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, July 29, 2014

How sheds explain modern Russian life


A remarkable essay by Vitaly Kurennoj at the Calvert Journal which shows how in Russia "sheds and garages are more than just a handy storage space, they're a way of life". It's not the kind of garden office shedworking we normally showcase but it's a fascinating read with excellent photos. Here's a snippet:
"The garage is a huge fragment of Soviet culture that has survived in the modern-day Russian city. It is the most important element of a so-called dispersed way of life. Like the dacha, the garage divided the household between several living quarters. Simon Kordonsky,  the academic who introduced this concept of the dispersed way of life, sees the garage and the dacha as secret storage spaces, places where you can accumulate different supplies to guard yourself against any possible government repressions."
Well worth a browse. Photo: Vitaly Kurennoj. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Monday, July 28, 2014

Poetry cabin

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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Shed of the Year on television tonight


First one tonight at 8pm on Channel 4, then next two Thursdays. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homestead Timber Buildings - Manufacturers of Quality Timber Buildings

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Garden offices add value to your property


Nice piece in the Daily Telegraph by Caroline McGhie argues - quite rightly - that not only is working from home an excellent idea, but that it also adds value to your home if you come to sell it (the figure often quoted rather vaguely is 5% and there's nothing more concrete here although there are a couple of examples of loft extensions). Although it looks at homeworking in general, there's plenty about shedworking in there too. Here's a snippet:
"So home offices are popping up in gardens and extensions all over the country. In London, where prices are sky-high and space is short, workspace adds to value and buyer-appeal... Home offices also make a house more flexible to changing family needs, known as “future-proofing”. They can be converted into granny flats or homes for boomerang children when the time comes"
Well worth a browse - it also includes a couple of galleries featuring marvellous garden offices and properties for sale with garden offices including Rose Cottage in Deal, Kent, pictured above, on with Bright & Bright for £385,000. ----------------------------------------------------
Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Stable Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Tunsta: garden office + storage


Over the last few years, garden offices seem to have come increasingly frequently with traditional storage areas. Indeed, Garden2office has just introduced a new model, the Tunsta, to join its Sportskabin range. The buildings are an L-shape with the smaller 'leg' specifically set aside to be an insulated storage area. Almost any size and window lay-out can be made to order and fully installed models will cost from around £16,000. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Friday, July 18, 2014

Cozy Cottage


Small houses are very much the shedworkingesque hot trend of 2014. Here's one of our favourite so far, a very recent build from Tiny House UK. --------------------------------------------------------
Friday posts are sponsored by Warwick Buildings, manufacturers of outstanding quality timber buildings. Click here for more information.

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Japanese teahouseworking


Shedworking's literary editor Sarah Salway has been visiting the gardens at Bere Hill in Hampshire  where she spotted this marvellous Japanese teahouse built by Australian sculptors, Paul Jamieson and Rohan Ward. A lovely spot for some light shedworking although Sarah does describe it as "a perfect spot for daydreaming" too. You should also buy her new book Digging up Paradise which is excellent. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homestead Timber Buildings - Manufacturers of Quality Timber Buildings

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

The Northern Block: co-shedworking



Digital type foundry The Northern Block has called on shedworking specialists 3rdSpace to design a new headquarters to accommodate their creative team.

The resulting building takes the form of a black-clad timber and glass structure, with a 5m long floating desk surface running the length of the interior, overlooking Northumberland countryside. The brief sought out to create a space that would be at one with values and process of type design (to provide a functional and inspirational environmen.

The Northern Block director, Jonathan Hill, was also inspired by the principles of compact Japanese workspaces that made efficient use of space and natural light.

 "These spaces are really about professional craft or personal interest," said Ben Couture of 3rdSpace. "We have used our system to create a library for a literary professor, a furniture workshop for an author and a home office for an architect. They all begin with the same core components, but each comes to life and tells its own story when they are personalised with the objects or tools of each user, as well as bespoke internal elements."

For this project, a light-filled interior is internally lined with white-tinted birch plywood set between Douglas fir post and beams. The expressed structure sets a rhythm to the space and offers a reassuring symmetry. In addition to the custom-made cantilever desk, a laminated plywood wall-mounted storage unit displays graphic design books and journals in open shelving, and conceals lever arch files in the sliding door unit below. Magnetic glass white board panels allow an area for the designers to pin up inspirational images and draw out sample ideas at large scale.

The building was delivered to site, prefabricated in panels, and took just five days to fully assemble.



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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, July 15, 2014

Shed of the Year finalists announced


The longlist finalists for each category in the Shed of the Year 2014 have been announced on Shedblog and a fine selection they are. In the garden office entry, we particularly like Jamie Dix's Little Thatch but the other finalists are also well worth checking out
Rapod Garden Office - Toni Keers's shedworking atmosphere features a unique type of cladding
The Poki Shed - Huw Grantham's recycled/upcycled garden office has a VW camper bench seat
Denison Garden Studio - a present for the owner’s mothers 50th birthday.

They'll all have to go some to beat the teapot though... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Monday, July 14, 2014

Shed of the Year: TV times


Dates for your diary. The Shed of the Year miniseries (Amazing Spaces: Shed of the Year) is going to be a three-parter on Channel 4, starting at 8pm on July 24 (including the unique category). --------------------------------------------------------------------
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Wednesday, July 09, 2014

Entwurf Gartenhaus


Designer Thomas Paschke has been in touch to share his intriguing garden office design. As he puts it: "Gartenhäuser im Grünen, in denen einer beruflichen Tätigkeit nachgegangen wird, liegen im Trend" (working in garden offices is a definite trend). ----------------------------------------------------
Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Stable Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here

Tuesday, July 08, 2014

Beach hut news roundup


Beach huts are rising faster in value than prime London property according to the Daily Telegraph. The paper's Richard Dyson estimates (with some reservations) that beach hut prices have risen 53 per cent in the last two years, double the jump in Mayfair and Belgravia. He even suggests that some Mudeford huts have gone up 3,100 per cent over the last 40 years.

Meanwhile, the East Lindsey Target reports that beach huts on the Sutton-on-Sea promenade can now be used as shops. Two huts - 28 and 29 - have already been rented out as arts and crafts galleries. One hut will also be used as an information kiosk for visitors to the area.

Elsewhere, the Lytham St Annes Express covers the decision to approve plans for 30 beach huts which could bring up to 25,000 visitors a year to St Annes. Stuart Robertson, from 
applicants St Annes Beach Huts (pictured above), told the paper: “It’s not been an easy journey for me to try and get the beach huts established but I believe there is something magical about them." The decision will triple the number of huts. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Monday, July 07, 2014

Working from home in a treehouse, shepherd's hut, pod, tiny home, etc


A nice piece by Max Davidson in the Daily Telegraph about the delights of shedworking (with a very generous nod to this site) includes some thoughtful comments about working from home too. Here's a snippet:
For more and more Britons, homeworking is here to stay. Of the new jobs created since the Coalition came to power in 2010, more than a third are in the self-employed sector. It is that small army of self-employed – 4.5 million, according to a Bank of England report in April – who are driving the economic recovery. Some work full-time, some part-time, but they are their own bosses, and most need home offices of varying degrees of sophistication.
 Well worth a browse. --------------------------------------------------------------------
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Friday, July 04, 2014

Quiet Mark Treehouse




Treehouse specialists Blue Forest have been in touch with some details of their fabulous design for The RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show (July 8-13). It's been put together in conjunction with John Lewis.

“This year's show will focus on the themes of ‘Grow, inspire and escape’ and the treehouse will reinforce these ideas," said Simon Paye, director at Blue Forest. "The extraordinary stand-alone treehouse concept was inspired by the shape of a small copse of oak trees. Its bold contemporary design can be installed independently of a host tree yet still provides the user with the feeling that they are high in the tree tops looking down on the world below.”

Suspended above the ground, 26 huge laminated timber ribs surround the treehouse like the canopy of an ancient tree. Each of the 6m high timber ribs is finished with a sustainable timber product called Kebony, a sustainable alternative to tropical hardwood. At ground level, three primary trunks formed from 48 interlocking timber fins support the cocoon-like creation. Each of the fins has been stained dark brown to match the external cladding of the building, reflecting the natural bark of trees.

After the show it will be donated to The Chestnut Tree House Children’s Hospice in West Sussex. 

The treehouse is 9m tall, 6m wide and 10m long, with a floor space of 46m2. The main platform stands 4m above the ground. The entire structure weighs 25 tonnes, and it will need to be assembled by a 45 tonne crane. Quiet Mark is the not-for-profit trading arm of the Noise Abatement Society charity which is campaigning for quieter technology in the office and at home. --------------------------------------------------------
Friday posts are sponsored by Warwick Buildings, manufacturers of outstanding quality timber buildings. Click here for more information.

Thursday, July 03, 2014

How to build a garden office


Artist Damian Fennell's garden office will be built next week as he enters a new shedworkingesque stage of his life. We'll profile it once it's up and running but Damian has already been documenting the the process on his excellent blog includeing design thoughts and foundation-laying. "My aim is for it to hopefully be of some help for clueless first-timers like myself!" he says, but he's being modest and it's well worth a look if you're thinking of going down the shedworking route. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homestead Timber Buildings - Manufacturers of Quality Timber Buildings

Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Garden Shed of the Year (£6.95)



Just in case you don't win...

Spotted by friend of Shedworking Robin 'my former Latin master' Peach in a shop window in Cockermouth.
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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, July 01, 2014

Cozy Room



Here's another entry for the 'interior shedworking' section, the Cozy Room as featured on Treehugger. The chair is on rails and slides into the main section to form a pretty titchy shedlike atmosphere with shelves, desk and floor. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning