How not to buy a garden office

It's very important to buy your garden office from a reputable supplier - you are shelling out a large chunk of money so it's vital that you make sure everything is financially in order. The media has been reporting over the last few days on the case of beauty theapist Lucy Fletcher who bought a shipping container garden studio as a workplace for £3,600 from a listing on Facebook Marketplace. Not only did the lister turn out to be a conman who made off with the lot, she got rid of her previous studio to make room for the new one and so consequently has missed out on a lot of work. So if you're planning to invest in a new garden office, please do check all the bona fides and talk things through with your bank if you're not absolutely certain before transferring any money at all (in this case her bank did offer to refund half the money involved).

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SMART designs and manufactures industry leading garden rooms from our very own Suffolk factory and installed all over mainland UK

 

The best Show Garden buildings at Chelsea Flower Show 2023

If you're going to Chelsea Flower Show this week, here are our top tips about what to look for in terms of shedlike structures in the Show Gardens area. Sadly garden offices are again rather overlooked but there are still some marvellous builds to enjoy. First up (above) is the ‘mushroom den’ made from a reclaimed steel-clad shipping container in the Centre for Mental Health's 'The Balance Garden'.

Enjoy the stone cairns in Horatio's Garden but feast your eyes on the organic garden pod (above) which the RHS says "provides a cocooning place for physical and emotional shelter".

Here's the lovely Myeloma UK - A Life Worth Living Garden featuring two splendid Neoclassical-style temples, built on a timber frame and clad in a fabric printed to look like the render of an Italian chapel.

The RBC Dolphin Brewin Garden (above) features a hand-built oak pavilion structure with bespoke metalwork roof. And finally (below) perhaps the only structure that could be labelled a 'garden office', The Royal Entomological Society Garden which features an outdoor laboratory built into a hillside, a space in which to perform scientific research (after the show it's going to IQL Stratford in East London to be used for just that) with a remarkable bright blue domed roof inspired by an insect eye

Outside the Show Gardens, in the Sanctuary Gardens area look out for The Biophilic Garden Otsu - Hanare featureing this excellent 'hanare', a small house separated from the main building (that sounds a familiar description...).

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Malvern Garden Buildings offer a premium collection of garden buildings, displayed at 11 UK showsites.

Drop garden office

The Drop office from Barcelona-based InTenta is somewhere between garden office and tiny house territory. It's shipping container-size 2.4m wide and can be fitted out as either a rather nice shedworking space, on stilts if that's how you want it, or as somewhere to live small - essentially, the whole thing is built and then 'dropped' into place, outdoor deck and all, including options such as kitchenette and lavatory. There's one of those 360 degree tour things here.

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Friday posts are sponsored by Warwick Buildings, manufacturers of outstanding quality timber buildings. Click here for more information.

Will rooftop garden offices be the next 2021 trend?

While people without gardens understandably say they're not really in a position to have a garden office, we've actually covered plenty of examples of shedlike working atmospheres on Shedworking over the last 15 years, including a surprising number of rooftop garden offices including the fine one pictured above from Boundary Space at the  top of a London townhouse, a kind of urban meadow (and here are some rather more spectacular examples).

So we were intrigued to hear from John-Paul Manning, managing directgor at Build4Less that their latest research into rooftop garden trends for this year puts a rooftop office in the mix, coming in at a creditable 10th spot, hard on the heels of container gardens, canopies, and decking.

"During lockdown the line between indoor and outdoor space became increasingly blurred as people tried to maximise their use of space and make it feel homey as the spring season sets in," says John-Paul. "Rooftop real estate is often a pretty hot commodity. In most cases there’s a limited amount of space and as a result most rooftop trends focus on ways to use the space as efficiently as possible. We’ve found that people are moving towards making the rooftop as open air as possible. Fences are being replaced with tall garden elements like trees and vertical gardens, and glass has begun to replace wood as paraphets in a way that gives privacy but also keeps the space fresh and open." 

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Friday posts are sponsored by Warwick Buildings, manufacturers of outstanding quality timber buildings. Click here for more information.

 

Glass wall shedworking: The Ood garden office

 

 

The ÖÖD Office Room is a microarchitectural spinoff by Estonian brothers Andreas and Jaak Tiik who already have the ÖÖD House in their building portfolio which is along similarly intriguing lines. Designed so that three offices can fit in one 40ft container and thus be shipped worldwide, the office version is either all floor-to-ceiling glass or can contain a couple of wooden walls, all around a steel structure.

 

 

There is also a version which replaces the walls with mirrors.

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Friday posts are sponsored by Warwick Buildings, manufacturers of outstanding quality timber buildings. Click here for more information.

 

Unmanned tiny shops in Sweden

An interesting article in The Guardian about Lifvs, a new supermarket chain in Sweden - no stranger to the concept of small working spaces - which is using (large) garden office-sized units to provide unmanned shops in rural areas of the country with low population. They are up to 19 now and looking to expand, each shop built around a container design which can easily be set down and picked up again when required.  Well worth a read.

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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

Why your next garden office could be a beach hut

The Plymouth Herald has a nice feature about The Clay Factory in Ivybridge just outside Plymouth, a kind of superduper co-working and venue office space for entrepreneurs in an old factory building. Part of their offering is a hot desking facility based in a dozen beach huts which they say are "ideal for start-ups, freelancers and home based entrepreneurs looking to build".  There is 24/7 access, parking, visitor access, postal services and super fast wifi. They complement the converted shipping container office spaces already up and running.
Thanks to Uncle Wilco for his eagle eyes. ------------------------------------------

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Shipping container garden office

The Randy Bens Architecture practice in Canada embraced the shedworking ethic when it made a recent move to expand, not into a traditional office but to a garden office built from a larger than normal corten stell shipping container, reduced from 40′ to 28' long, 11.5′ wide and 9.5′ tall.

It has yellow cedar cladding on the outside and birch plywood lining on the inside where there is the studio work space, a small kitchen, and a bathroom. There is also a rather nice large picture window at one end and the whole thing cantilevers off the foundation. Below is an excellent short video of the office being delivered.
 Photographs by Ema Peter

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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

Shed Box of Delights: Green roof container garden office

Turning shipping containers into garden offices and buildings was flavour of the month half a dozen years ago and there are some signs that it is on trend again. The Grass Roof Company is among those putting forward some lovely designs, the one above built from two used containers and clad in larch featuring a wood burning stove. The company supplies them straight to site with green roof and habitat walls. Here's what they say about them:

We love used freight containers, they have already spent at least 10 years at sea, they are immensely strong and versatile. A perfect base to fix green roofs and habitat walls. Take the side away and you have a shelter for interpretation, cycle store, outdoor classroom or stage? A truly sustainable building, they can move with you or sell on complete!

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Friday posts are sponsored by Warwick Buildings, manufacturers of outstanding quality timber buildings. Click here for more information.

Shed Box of Delights: Crossroads Garden Shed

Every year the 'that's not a shed' cry can be heard on the interwebs when the Shed of the Year shortlistees are drawn up. So here's something to be going on with in the meantime which also falls neatly into our recent looks at shipping container sheds.

The Crossroads Garden Shed is part of a 49-acre development in Calgary with a community garden and around 100 raised planter beds. The shed which stores gardening tools and outdoor furniture designed by 5468796 Architecture which suggested the shed would make an ideal gathering space. It's made out of three shipping containers, Cor-Ten steel sheets in hexagonal shapes, and rusted metal mesh which fit together to give it a pavilion vibe.

Lots more photos of the 'shed' at architectsmagazine.com --------------------------------------------------------

Friday posts are sponsored by Warwick Buildings, manufacturers of outstanding quality timber buildings. Click here for more information.

Shipping container garden office

East Anglia-based Timberpad design and build bespoke timber buildings and shipping container conversions - all their buildings are bespoke, there is no basic range. Following last week's theme, we're concentrating here on their shipping container office which as they say "looks right at home in any industrial setting until you open the container doors and see the contrast of the clean, contemporary interior".

All the conversions are fully insulated and potential features include glass sliding doors, oak flooring, underfloor heating. And of course it's easily transported. --------------------------------------------------------------------
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The return of the shipping container garden office - Part 1

Using shipping containers as garden offices was very popular a few years ago and it seems to be on the way back into favour (see here for a recent example in York). An interesting article on the BBC site by Simon Fry - Boxing clever: The firms based in shipping containers - which concentrates largely on the 50 containers that make up Pop Brixton and Boxpark, both in London. Here's a snippet

Each offers start-up businesses a more affordable way to get a roof over their heads, and the opportunity to rub shoulders with other like-minded firms... In 2015, 2.48 million standard-size 40ft (12m) shipping containers arrived in the UK, but only 2.41 million left again, according to official figures from the Department for Transport. The ones that stay are typically retired from service due to wear and tear, and put up for sale. And if you fancy one as a large garden shed, you can pick one up for about £1,100.

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Container shedworking spaces plan for York

An interesting article on the always well-informed YorkMix site reveals that plans are afoot to add a shedlike 'third place' working space to Piccadilly in York. It forms part of a new 'box park' plan called Spark: York to use shipping containers for shops, cafés, performance spaces and community projects in the city centre.

The plans for 15 containers over two levels come from local entrepreneurs Tom McKenzie, Sam Leach, and Joe Gardham and would be the first of its kind in the region, with free wifi and desk space for members of the public on a drop-in basis, as well as operating as a shared workspace hub for start-ups.

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Friday posts are sponsored by Warwick Buildings, manufacturers of outstanding quality timber buildings. Click here for more information.

Cantilevered shipping container garden office

Nice piece on designboom about architect Patrick Bradley's new shipping container office, designed and built in collaboration with Thornton Modular which specialises in turning shipping containers into a range of sizes suitable for working and living in (Bradley's is a TO45 model). Grand Designs fans will have seen their work on an episode aired last year (more details here).

ContainerVille

ContainerVille is a new initiative for young creatives looking for affordable shedlike atmospheres in which to work and grow their entrepreneurial businesses. It is made up of 30 converted storage containers on the south bank of Regent’s Canal, London, with low rent and minimal overheads so that small businesses can grow..

The containers are fully functioning spaces for up to five people per container - a whole container can be rented for £1,200 per month or individual desk spaces (each container has space for four desks) for £320pp per month. The goal is that ContainerVille becomes a dynamic hub of start-ups and small businesses, with landscaping around the containers geared to promote collaborative working and integration, with shared outdoor areas overlooking the canal.

Nearly a third of the containers were pre-let before the fit out was complete and viewings for the remaining containers are underway. More details at their site.

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Shipping container garden office

After a huge flurry of interest a couple of years ago in using shipping containers as buildings/building blocks, the excitement seems to have died down a little. However, we rather like this charming design by Shane Peterson who - using 3D Studio Max 2012, Vray and Photoshop - has turned a standard 20′ steel shipping container into a garden office which could be put together off site and then delivered to a home. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Used shipping container architect's backyard office (video)

Shipping containers are built to carry huge loads and the refrigerated units are very efficient at climate control. So it's unsurprising that when they're retired from the sea, they're being used as the building blocks for homes and offices.

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