Thursday, February 28, 2019

Henry Moore's rotating garden office studio


Henry Moore Studios & Gardens at Perry Green have recently refurbished the sculptor's Summer House (pictured above) which was one of a number of studios and sheds in which he worked from 1940 onwards. Moore bought the Summer House in the early 1950s and erected it in the Hoglands garden. According to the charity: "It provided him with an informal space for drawing connected to the outdoors and with plenty of natural light. Originally mounted on a turntable, it could be rotated to change views and find the best conditions at different times of the day." Sadly, it is now static though still very much worth a visit.
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Thursday posts are sponsored by Cabin Master: garden offices and studios to fit any size garden. Top quality contemporary or traditional buildings.

Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Garden office with swimming pool


This 3.5 x 3m bespoke garden office with storage area and adjacent summer house by National Stables comes with an 11m outdoor heated swimming pool (plus slide and powered water jets) and a four bedroom house in Kennington, Ashford. It's on with Hobbs Parker Ashford for £695,000. ------------------------------------------
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Carsie Blanton: shedworker


New Orleans-based singer-songwriter Carsie Blanton is a very happy shedworker. In an interview with The Bluegrass Situation she explains how she writes all her songs in her 8' x 8' backyard writing studio which she calls The Watermelon. Here's what she says:
It’s all mine and nobody else has a key! It’s green on the outside and watermelon-pink on the inside, and it’s filled with every object I own that inspires me or makes me feel lucky: terracotta pigs from Chile; a badger skull; milagros and alebrijes from Mexico; prints by my favorite artists; books by my favorite writers (plus a collection of rhyming dictionaries and thesauri); orchids and succulents; prayer candles from my local voodoo shop; and both of my guitars (a 1907 Washburn parlor and a cherry red 1972 Gibson ES-320). There’s also a sea-green writing desk with drawers full of markers, stamps, and newspaper clippings. When I’m ready to write, I light all the candles and water all the plants and make myself a cup of tea
In a follow-up post on instagram she writes:
I cannot stress enough how essential it has been to have a private and inspiring place to work. I want to invite creative people of all stripes (that’s YOU) to prioritize creating a safe haven for your work, where you can commune with your muse without distraction. It can be any size, anywhere - what’s important is that it’s completely yours; nobody else (and I mean NOBODY; no kids, no spouses, no lovers, no pets) can mess it up, clean it up, or leave their weird mojo lying around in it without your explicit invitation. It can be a corner of the basement, a log in the public park, or the hatchback of your car. This is a totally selfish luxury that every human should have.
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Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Beach hut prices still at high levels




Brexit house price uncertainty does not seem to have affected beach hut prices at Mudeford Sandbank, Christchurch, where they are still at near record levels, with the latest 15ft x 12ft property from Denisons (pictured above) going on sale at £275,000, just under the 300k top figure. As with other huts, there's no running water, mains electric or toilet in Hut 325 in the middle of the sandbank, though it does boast a kitchen, sitting room, decking, and mezzanine level which sleeps two, plus very nice sea views indeed towards the Isle of Wight. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Monday, February 25, 2019

Shed crime is on the decline


New research from Tiger Sheds about shed burglaries makes for heartening yet still unpleasant reading for shedworkers.

The company looked at data from police forces around England from 2014 to 2017 which shows that on average more than 22,500 cases of garden and shed burglary are reported every year with the highest figures as follows:
  1. Lancashire Constabulary - 11,226
  2. Greater Manchester Police - 10,408
  3. Humberside Police - 9,022
  4. West Yorkshire Police - 8,604
  5. Cleveland Police - 6,827
Of the police forces that supplied data for 2018 too, Humberside had the most reports of theft (1,711), followed by Greater Manchester (1,538) and Essex (1,525).

Which doesn't sound great but the good news is that the volume of garden and shed theft being reported to police is decreasing. In 2018, there was a fall in the total number of burglaries in almost every location, especially Nottinghamshire, where instances of garden and shed burglary decreased by more than half (1,794 in reports in 2017 vs only 781 reports last year). As you might expect, the most common thefts were of bicycles and power tools/lawnmowers.

The report is a reminder that all garden offices and shedlike atmospheres need decent security. Doors and windows are a basic must, but shedworkers should also consider other options including outdoor sensory lighting and alarms.
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Friday, February 22, 2019

BBQ cabin office with extension





This 10m cabin build from Arctic Cabins is a mixed use build which is not only a garden office but also a mancave/bar. It includes a special extension for food prep which gives it an interesting look and is used regularly at the weekends for family meals as well as during the week. Owner Tim says: "It’s a great escape for the adults and a space for us to chill out but also a fantastic space for our children who are now young adults to have freedom to hang out with their friends but not be too far from home." It is decorated with Beatles memorabilia
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Thursday posts are sponsored by Cabin Master: garden offices and studios to fit any size garden. Top quality contemporary or traditional buildings.

Sunday, February 17, 2019

The rollercaster emotions of shedworkers, homeworkers and homepreneurs


New research from Barclays has revealed what they describe as "the rollercoaster of emotions Britain’s army of homepreneurs experience while running their business and the support they need to grow".

Around 38 per cent of UK businesses are now home-based, with the number increasing by three per cent over the last five years. This new study looked at the way home-based business owners feel when they work from home - overall, two thirds said they feel happy and a similar figure said they "experienced excitement" while running their business at home. Over half (said they are more efficient working alone without distractions from others.
 
However, just over a third of those surveyed also admitted to experiencing feelings of loneliness while working from home for their business, attributing these emotions mainly to not having colleagues around to discuss ideas with or not having people around for support when things get stressful. Almost a fifth said they actively phoned their friends and family during the day to combat isolation.

When they were asked about the support needed to grow their business, about a third said they want to work alongside more like-minded businesses, and over a quarter that they would like to collaborate with more people who can help grow their business. 

Image courtesy Cabinmaster
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Saturday, February 16, 2019

An office like a garden-space inspired by monks


This project by Italian designers DEGW for pharma giant Pierre Fabre in Milan shows how far the concept of a garden office has seeped into the mainstream design of more traditional offices. According to the architects: "The layout is geared to the distinctive characteristics of each work team, in the same way a monk would take meticulous care of every single thing in their own botanical garden." They go on to say:
The concept that DEGW developed derives from a desire to create a garden-space with geometric, directional internal corridors designed like a garden of “simples” (a simple is a medicament made from a herb), where mediaeval monks once grew medicinal plants and herbs, the same that Pierre Fabre still uses to develop its main pharmacological and dermo-cosmetic products.
To add to the effect, the buildings meeting rooms and even phone booths are named after medicinal plants. More images at the link above and here for details of a similar project.
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Friday, February 15, 2019

Garden art studio


Here's a garden office from Booths Garden Studios for potter Andy and artist Jaynes, measuring 5.5m x 2.8m. Features include a large picture window to the front, two fanlight windes to the rear to increase light/ventilation (the kiln gets very hot) and a door on the right hand side to maximise space. The sink was installed by a local plumber. Below, Alex Booth discusses the build.


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Thursday, February 14, 2019

Build your own shepherd's hut

Shepherd's hut specialist Plain Huts are suggesting that 2019 could be the year that you build your own shepherd's hut using one of their kits. This could be particularly useful if you've got no chance of getting one delivered to your back garden.

The flat pack consists of a rolling chassis with cast iron wheels and oak axles, walls, roof joists, roofing material and fixings (plus of course a planner but not windows or doors unless you buy the super deluxe version). According to Plain Huts: "The kit you receive is constructed in exactly the same way we build our own huts." One happy customer is pictured above with his diy hut. More details and images at their site here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday posts are sponsored by Cabin Master: garden offices and studios to fit any size garden. Top quality contemporary or traditional buildings.

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

The Fuselage




The Fuselage comes from Tree Tents and while it's aimed at extreme glampers it would also make a cracking garden office. According to the company it is inspired by the principles of modern aerospace design and is lightweight, robust and extremely portable - the frame is made of sustainably-sourced wood and recycled aluminium and features include a wood stove and low-voltage radiant heating. There are also various off-grid extras. The Fuselage can be mounted on stilts, on uneven ground, or suspended from trees. More images here.

Their other model, below, is also intriguing, though rather different and also ideal as a garden office.


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Tuesday, February 12, 2019

French composer's garden office


This is the Forest House by French architects JCPCDR who converted an old shed for a composer living in rural France into a working garden office featuring a woodburning stove, outdoor shower, and eco-toilet, as well as a flat rooftop which is accessible from the ground and can be walked upon. The build had a strong ecological angle with the glass and steel upcycled from a derelict factory, and timber from a local sawmill. Here's what they say about it:
This space, though small in size, was conceived to give a sense of quiet, and intimacy with the surrounding nature. Whether you are standing, sitting or even laying down on the convertible sofa, canopies are designed to frame various perspectives on the vegetable garden, the beautiful 1940's house, the centennial oak... and even the stars at night. Light flows from one side of the house to the other, and the ambiance transforms throughout the day and the seasons.
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Monday, February 11, 2019

Paul Kingsnorth: shedworker


Writer and founder of the Wyrd School, Paul Kingsnorth (The Wake, Beast) is also a shedworker, based on a smallholding in Galway. In an interview with Erica Wagner for the New Statesman, he tells her about Beast that "he could only have written it looking out over the field outside his writing shed". In fact, he built it himself. Here's how Wagner describes it:
"We’re sitting in the Irish sunshine in front of a comfortable wooden hut a moment’s walk away from the house. It’s his writing place, and it’s where I spent the night, the darkness and quiet providing the kind of sleep that I’d hardly recalled existed. Round the walls inside, Kingsnorth has tacked up a reproduction of the Bayeux Tapestry, the story of William the Bastard’s conquest. There is no wifi here and no phone signal, either."

Here's how he describes his shedworking writing routine (pictured above, his hut in the snow):
Like many writers I'm a fairly reclusive, introspective person. I need the stars, the wind and the silence to produce my words. I live on a smallholding in Ireland with my wife, where we grow our own food and fuel, make our own bread and school our own children. I'm not all over social media, I don't blog and I don't tweet pictures of my breakfast to the world. I sit in the writing hut you can see at the top of this page, light the fire, eat chocolate bars, listen to the song thrushes, watch the young birches grow, and see what arises. 
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Sunday, February 10, 2019

The Story Garden office



The British Library in collaboration with eco-educational charity Global Generation will open a temporary community garden on the land to the north of the British Library building in May in response to the local community’s wishes for more green space. Local people and British Library staff will start planting the garden next month.

The British Library [full disclosure, they publish several of my books] and developers Stanhope say the one acre site will be somewhere for people to come and plant and cook together. It will include a kitchen and office in converted containers as well as a straw bale rounhouse, pictured above. Other features are an orchard and a MAKE space in partnership with UAL Central St Martins and Somers Town Community Association which aims to deliver specific projects for the local community of Somers Town.
 The Story Garden forms part of the British Library’s plans to develop the 2.8 acre site to the north of the St Pancras building to include space for exhibitions, business and learning facilities.

Slaney Devlin of the Somers Town Neighbourhood Forum said: “The Somers Town Neighbourhood Forum is aware of the importance of green and open spaces in improving the health and wellbeing of those living, studying and working in Somers Town.  We hope that the planned community garden will be a new green resource in the area and will catalyse a growth in planting and gardening in the wider community."
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Friday, February 08, 2019

Building a garden office: part 3 (video)


Here's the latest from web designer and developer Jack McConnell's video series on how to build a garden office (you can see earlier episodes here). Here's what he says about it:
In this video, I set out my foundations and mortared them to my hardcore pad with the help of my Dad (thanks, Dad!). Nothing too technical or informative but a good, quick view of the materials and technique I used to install them.
The next episode will deal with building the floor.


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Thursday, February 07, 2019

Garden office with rustic effect cladding


We talked last week about different colours for garden office exteriors, such as Living Coral or black. Here's an interesting idea from Smart Spaces from their recent garden office build in Sheffield who have used a rustic effect to their cladding to help it blend into the location. It comes with dark framed windows and doors. Thumbs up from the Shedworking staff. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday posts are sponsored by Cabin Master: garden offices and studios to fit any size garden. Top quality contemporary or traditional buildings.

Kettal Pavilions



If you're considering some light summertime shedworking verging on the pergolaworking, then Barcelona-based Kettal Pavilions (who also have a base in Florida) have some intriguing options. Top is their Cottage model and above is their Pavilion H design, although there are other models too. They are built largely out of aluminium and Canadian cedar, with fabric ceilings and walls.

The designs also work for inside shedworking. Below is an example of their Office Pavilion range which are made up of movable walls and targeted at open-plan office spaces.


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Thursday posts are sponsored by Cabin Master: garden offices and studios to fit any size garden. Top quality contemporary or traditional buildings.