Nissen hut garden offices

For a retro shedworking atmosphere, consider a modern Nissen Hut. Redesigned though retaining the familiar shape of the original which was designed by George Nissen in 1916, his great grandson George is targeting the garden office market.

The huts are designed in George's studio in London then built in Perthshire by co-founder Mark Lynch. Each pod - the standard model is 3.4m x 2.9m x 2.5m high - takes three days to erect and can be easily dismantled and put back together if you decide to move house. All the normal must-haves are there and the insulation is pure sheep's wool. Features include double-glazed French doors and the pods do not usually need concrete foundations. -------------------------------------------------------

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Cabin Habit: a new cool way of shedworking?

"Garden cabin cool in mid-century urban-industrial style" is how Pangbourne-based Cabin Habit  describe their garden office buildings which are inspired by wartime Nissen huts (with additional urban-industrial edge) and fill the gap in the market for "a fully insulated garden building with mid-century cool".

"They are the cool alternative to the ubiquitous wooden garden building or modernist cube," they say. "Fill your nostrils with nostalgia, cook up some beans, get your harmonica out and get into the Cabin Habit." The site is well worth exploring and there is a wide range of size and additional features such as security options, underfloor heating, and built-in furnitre, though the standard cabins are 11' x 16', 11' x 12' and 11' x 8' with additional porch at the front. Inside, there is the possibility of adding a partion wall. -----------------------------------------------------

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Nissen hut for sale

These don't come up for sale very often, especially three bedroom ones. Dating from the second World War, this corrugated iron hut/bungalow in Chidham, West Sussex, is not in a great state of repair but has been lived in for the last 50 years until fairly recently. As well as the hut - which comes with all the usual fixtures and fittings - there are other outbuildings including a wooden garage, workshop and some pig stys. Price on application from the agents, Strides.
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Garden Office of the Year 2011: Mary's Meals

A very worthy runner-up in this year's Shed of the Year and clear winner in the Garden Office category, Mary’s Meals in Dalmally, Scotland is probably also the worthiest shedworking atmosphere we've featured. It was set up to establish school feeding projects in communities around the world where poverty and hunger prevent children from gaining an education: currently, Mary’s Meals provides daily meals in school for over 500,000 children in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

And it is all run from 'Calum’s shed', a Nissen hut-style building borrowed by the charity's founder Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow from his father to store blankets and medicines to be delivered where needed in Bosnia. It has two main rooms, one which is Magnus's office and the other which is used for meetings: one reason why the shed is still in use is that it enables the charity to keep its overheads low and thus spend more on helping children in need.

Mary's Meals - The Difference A Meal Makes from Mary's Meals on Vimeo.
Photos courtesy readersheds.co.uk where you can find a lot more.
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Invented in a shed: instant noodles

In 1958, Momofuku Ando invented the instant noodle (calling it 'Chicken Raman') following intensive research in the shed in his back garden of his home in Ikeda, Japan. You can see a recreation of the shed at the Nissen Instant Ramen Museum where you should click on the number '2' for a better view. Alternatively, download the brochure in English (if your Japanese is as rotten as mine) here.

Thanks to Scott Clark for the alert
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Nissen and Quonset Huts: help needed

Reader Hugh McDaniel writes to say that he is starting on the renovation of a Nissen and a Quonset hut.

"I need some plans to compare mine with so I keep the building in line with their original specification. Both are in remarkable condition, the Nissen Hut is going to make an excellent cinema and the Quonset I am spec'ing for my father in law as a country retreat. Any advice/help will be gratefully received. At the end of the project I will be having a party of all helpers (we are in Lincolnshire, close to Sturgate Airfield)."

Please let me know if you can help or just leave a comment below.
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Nissen hut search

A reader of Shedworking has written in anonymously to ask the following:

I would like to buy an old Nissen hut to dismantle and re-erect as a storage building. Anyone know where I can get one? I'd prefer the fibre concrete sheets rather than steel. I live in Kent but would of course be prepared to travel, dismantle, collect etc. Any ideas?

Those of you interested in Nissens will enjoy a quick trip to Nissens.co.uk
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Enter the Le Corbusier Cabanon competition

To coincide with the the Le Corbusier exhibition taking place at the RIBA, Blueprint and Cassina have launched a competiton for visitors to design their own retreat. Le Corbusier drew the initial sketches for the Cabanon in 45 minutes so Blueprint asked leading architects to imagine their own retreat, and sketch this for them in 45 minutes. You can see images and videos of these modern-day cabanons on the Blueprint website (entry details on RIBA's site here). There are some marvellous designs including Christophe Egret from Studio Egret West's nest-like cabanon in the forest of pine trees surrounding the dunes of Holkham Beach in Norfolk. Here's what he says about it:

"It is intended as a man-made nest propped above the fragile dunes that form the extraordinary amphitheatre setting of this beach. Unlike the colourful beach huts sitting on the sand, this structure has organic forms made of timber that blend with the trunks of the surrounding forest. The plan follows the shape of a three-leaf clover: one leaf for Lying, another for Standing (cooking and showering) and the third for Sitting (table and desk). When not in use, the stair leading to the Nest collapses back into the structure. Externally, a weave of marine plywood strips forms a pattern of honeycomb apertures that shade the structure."

There are also a couple of videos of the architects at work including Pippa Nissen, below, who was also inspired by her morning cup of coffee.
Well worth a browse.
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Friggebod Friday - Pildammsparken

Here we have some multi purpose sheds, a series constructed in Pildammsparken, Malmö, Sweden, writes Shedworking's northern Europe correspondent Sy Willmer. Realised from appealing chunky timber sections with industrial fixings and sitting on concrete pile foundations, they feature a fantastic array of flap down surfaces with open and enclosed spaces. They are used by a range of social groups such as the local scouts - theirs is surrounded by wigwams - and all are opened up during communal park activities, namely the summer open air music programme when concerts are held in the open green area of the crescent woodland where these sheds lie enclosed. As is often the case in the more northern climes of Europe there is a distinct lack of these sheds having suffered any abuse or vandalism. I have long pondered upon this difference of respect for the public space with other EU state’s societies. You the reader may have noticed this from the previous images I have posted of Scandinavian sheds in the community environment as part of this Friggebod Friday section. Perhaps it is the consideration in design or commitment to spend the taxpayer’s money wisely? I can’t answer that here, but these beauties sure beat the damp pre fab Nissen hut I spent every Wednesday night in as a youth.

Timegirl's Nissen hut

I had a lot of fun helping Uncle Wilco from readersheds.co.uk organise National Shed Week and an unexpected bonus has been that I've come across plenty of interesting shedworking atmospheres. Timegirl's Tardis was the overall runnerup in the competition but not only is she a champion shedowner, she's a sheddweller too, living in a restored Nissen hut (pictured) for which she has recently gained residential permission. Timegirl, a watch and clockmaker and restorer, told Shedworking in an exclusive interview:

"It was put up in the 1940s apparently and has also been a chicken house and a garage over the years, but it's been home since I slid off the property ladder - I doubt there are many detached homes in the south east with band A council tax! I've been busy repairing the roof of the hut for the last week, all that rain showed up a few more holes, so the building is covered in a 30' tarp at the moment - that's shed dwelling :-)

"It has an internal frame with wood cladding, still the curved shape, only 18' x 28'. The planning was retrospective although the hut was used as a dwelling in the 40s 50s and into the 60s. The planning department said they knew it had been a dwelling and said 'send in all the evidence you have', but 6 months later (after I'd moved in) they said they had no record of it. So I sat tight, bought blackout blinds, and then applied for lawful use and development under the four-year-rule. There were no restrictions when I got the planning, so the hut could be replaced with a house - and I expect friends to ask why we don't do that, but when they see the hut they always love it. And when I need more space I just build more sheds :-)"