Amazing Spaces writing den

If you missed it last week, George Clarke's Channel 4 show Amazing Spaces is back on the small screen. The first episode feature former taxi driver  Caroline who is building a writing den in her garden with the help of her grandchildren. Much of the materials are recycled (largely concrete and timber) and her whole budget is £800 - the design is essentially dependent on what she can pick up for nothing (or next to) from the local dump or skips. You can watch the programme on catchup here (though it's a bit annoying with all the adverts).

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Shed shelter in the Alps

A pefect place for some restful prefabricated shedworking by Roberto Dini and Stefano Girodo who call this Bivouac Luca Pasqualetti, 3,290m up a steep hillside. More fantastic and vertigo-inducing images at the link. ------------------------------------

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Feather-edge cladding

A simple and effective garden building from Warwick Buildings which has feather-edge cladding and aluminium-framed sliding double doors with blinds inside the double glazing (between-glass blinds). -------------------------------------------------------

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

Ridge & Furrow workshop

Cotswolds-based designers Ridge & Furrow (who we featured yesterday) are shedworkers themselves and they have an excellent step by step photo guide to how they built their own workshop in their front yard, above. Here's what they say about it: 

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"This may be an outbuilding but there's no reason practical spaces can't be beautiful. The interiors are made from reclaimed materials. The walls are lime rendered and the floor is made up of vintage quarry tiles and oak floorboards. The whole stone and timber structure is warmed by underfloor heating and awash with natural light from glass doors and a large skylight."

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

The rise of gardens in the office

An interesting article in the New York Times asks (and then answers) The Next Frontier in Office Space? The Outdoors. Journalist Jane Margolies argues that outdoor work areas are the logical next step in the evolution of flexible offices and writes:

Employers with suburban campuses have long turned swaths of blank lawn into furnished outdoor areas where workers can meet with colleagues, work alone or simply take a break from their computer screens. Now, developers and owners of urban office buildings are adding terraces and transforming once-barren rooftops into parklike settings, where workers can plant vegetables, unfurl yoga mats or swing in a hammock.

Among the examples she gives is CookFox Architects (who themselves grow kale and keep an apiary on their own office terraces) who have recently completed an office building which has nearly 17,000 square feet of terraces featuring native grasses and trees. Well worth a read.

Pictured is the roof garden on the Holland Mills Mori Tower in Tokyo. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Garden office translation shed

A very atmospheric garden office by Ridge and Furrow for literary translator Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp which also doubles as a bike shed. Originally it was a concrete bunker with an asbestos roof so they've done some extremely good work. Features included reclaimed double garage doors, sheepswool insulation, and lime-rendered/limewashed walls. Windows and floor are reclaimed oak and there is a lovely verandah with gutters connected to water butts. There are also two skylights. We'll bring you another Ridge and Furrow build tomorrow.

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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.

Wooden garden office built around brick shed

A very clever build by Rotterdam-based architects Open Kaart - it's a painting studio built of wood wrapped around an existing brick shed and used by the clients as a painting studio with storage space and an upper floor. More images at the link above and an interview with its creator at dezeen. ------------------------------------------

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