National Freelancers Day

Tweets about national freelancers day

More information at www.nationalfreelancersday.com and there's a nice piece about the life of a freelance by Suzanne Bearne in The Guardian. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Serpentine Pavilion and Summer Houses

Some lovely designs for The Serpentine's 16th annual Pavilion and Summer House exhibition which runs from June 10 until the start of October. The Summer Houses are all inspired by Queen Caroline’s Temple, a classical style summer house built in 1734 near the Serpentine Gallery in London. Each summer house is 25sqm. The Serpentine Pavilion, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, described as an ‘unzipped wall’, a café and activities centre by day, and performance space by night.

Kunlé Adeyemi’s Summer House is an inverse replica of Queen Caroline’s Temple, while Barkow Leibinger were inspired by another 18th Century pavilion designed by William Kent which revolved.

Asif Khan’s design is a homage to the way that Queen Caroline’s Temple was positioned to make the most of the sunlight from lake.

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Marcus Sedgwick: Shedworker

 

Bestselling writer Marcus Sedgwick is also a committed shedworker. Here he is writing on his blog about his garden office (click the link for lots more interior shots).

"A few years ago I moved back to Cambridge: when I saw this shed in the garden of one of the houses I was viewing, I put an offer in on the spot. Like most writers, I’ve had to work in all sorts of inappropriate spaces, and, like most writers, always craved the perfect place to work. My shed is near perfect. It’s a little on the small side, but that just means I have to tidy up from time to time, which is no bad thing."

In an article for The Guardian he added:

The space in my shed I see as an exterior manifestation of my imagination – at any given time the walls are heavy with clippings, doodles, photos and words all connected to whatever book I’m working on. And yet, I’m aware that while writing, I might be physically in my shed, but some part of my mind is travelling again, to those places that inspired the story.

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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

Help Historic England document shed history

Historic England has launched a crowdsourcing project, asking people to contribute their knowledge to augment what's known about the official list of England’s 400,000 most significant historic places
 
The List began in 1882, when the first powers of protection were established. It has almost 400,000 entries: barrows and bunkers, palaces and pigsties, plague crosses and piers, tower blocks and tombstones, cathedrals, windmills and rollercoasters. And of course, garden offices, sheds, and other shedlike structures.

Amon them is a listed building in Gloucestershire that witnessed a momentous scientific breakthrough. The Jenner Hut (pictured above), sometimes called the “Temple of Vaccinia” is where Dr Edward Jenner performed his first vaccination against smallpox in 1796, on his gardener’s 8-year-old son. This small and simple hut is dubbed the birthplace of public health and Historic England would like people to share their photos of the unique building.

Also, Perrot’s Folly, The Monument or The Observatory, a Grade II listed building standing 96-foot above the surrounding suburban sprawl of Edgbaston, Birmingham. It is thought that JRR Tolkien, who spent much of his life in Birmingham and lived in a street near the tower as a child, was possibly inspired by it for the Two Towers in his Lord of the Rings trilogy. Built in 1758, the Folly (pictured) has been used for many purposes over the years, from a hunting retreat to a weather station, though it isn’t clear why it was built. One theory is that the owner, John Perrott, built the tower so that he could see his wife’s grave, fifteen miles away. Do you know more about the Folly?

To add your contributions to the List, visit www.historicengland.org.uk/etl
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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

Pure Pod garden office

South Wales-based Log Pod Innovations offers various attractive garden office possibilities. Pictured top is their PurePod which is made from a co-extruded substrate - it's 100% recyclable after its extensive life cycle and requires zero maintenance (you just hose it down). As well as the usual features, graphics can be applied (flatbed digitally printed or vinyl wrapped). Pictured below is the Log Pod, which come in a range of designs and with a flat pack option.

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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

Wildflower grass roof

The lovely garden office of Oxford-based landscape and garden designer Angus Thompson is clad in cement-particle board and has a wildflower grass roof. Designed by Waind, Gohil + Potter architects. --------------------------------------------------------------------
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Joanna Briscoe: Shedworker

An excellent article in The Guardian by writer Joanna Briscoe about the search for her perfect garden office (including a very kind mention of Shedworking the book). Here's a snippet:

With a house that is impossible to extend, the cabin has proved a delight: a tiny study, a teenage escape and a children’s sleepover retreat. I wanted the interior to be rustic but restrained, without going the gingham or polka dot route: strictly no bunting, barge ware or Hunter wellies are allowed near it. It is just big enough for two adults to squeeze in and sleep side by side, and oh the joy of waking among the dew and vegetables, with birdsong in the cold air; of lounging on the sofa reading; and, as my next deadline approaches, of writing in the tranquillity and resin scent of a real cabin. I can only recommend it. Wherever you live, the woods can come to a place very near you.

It was designed and built by Mark (pictured below, at work on it) at Tiny House and you can see more images of it and the build at his site.

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