New competition to find the UK's best 'shoffice'

As we recently predicted, we're seeing an uptick in the number of shed-based competitions and the latest angle is the search for the best 'shoffice'.

Aviva has launched a national competition to find the UK’s best “shoffices”, what they describe as "sheds or outbuildings converted or built for use as workspaces". Owners are invited to upload pictures of their shoffice to the Aviva Facebook page and will be in with a chance of winning one of three prizes of retail vouchers, each worth £250. Each winner will be able to choose from vouchers for Amazon, John Lewis Partners, Ikea, B&Q or Currys PC World. 

Entries will be judged by property expert, podcast host and author, Louisa Fletcher who will be looking for original, innovative designs, with bonus points awarded for brilliant use of budget. 

To be eligible for the competition, each shoffice must be a DIY project, such as a converted shed or garage, or a self-built development created by the owner. Professionally constructed or manufactured buildings will not be considered. There are no date restrictions regarding when the shoffice was developed, but entries must be received by 5pm on 1 June, 2021.

Last month, data from the insurer’s How We Live report discovered the number of UK homeworkers using converted sheds and outbuildings is expected to grow from 10% to 13%. Nicki Charles, Retail MD, General Insurance, Aviva said: “The number of people using outdoor spaces is steadily creeping upwards. For many, working from home started out as a ‘needs must’ situation, but hybrid working looks set to stay and there’s every chance we’ll see even more outdoor offices in the future. We want to see the creative, inventive solutions that people have come up with to embrace this new way of working."

Pictured above is probably the most famous shoffice, the work of Platform 5 as featured previously on Shedworking. 

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Shoffice

I can remember the first time I came across the term 'shoffice' about seven years ago thinking it was a marvellous description of a shedworking structure. Louise Jones from Arctic Cabins is also a fan and sent in a recent example of a shoffice built and fitted for a customer in the back garden of a Victorian terraced house in London.

"As we manufacture all our cabins from scratch at our Derbyshire factory we are able to build all our buildings to exactly meet customer requirements," she says. "This year several customers have wanted an office and a shed so we have combined the two into The ShOffice. The ShOffice isn’t a shed or an office but a combination of both, a partitioned garden building. The back section is a shed, not insulated but with its own door and windows. The front is an insulated office with doubleglazed windows and doors and it is all kitted out with electrics and heating"

Three winners scoop Aviva's Shoffice of the Year award

Aviva has revealed the winners of its competition to find the UK’s best “shoffices” i.e. sheds or outbuildings converted or built for use as workspaces.

Judge and property expert Louisa Fletcher said of the shoffice belonging to Kazzy Minton from Pembroke: "You can see the love and care that’s gone into creating Kazzy’s shoffice/design studio [pictured top]. It’s filled with personality and, tiny as it is, you can see just how well organised the space is to wring out every last bit of storage."

She also enjoyed Sandra Keogy's from Hampshire [pictured above]: "Evidence indeed that small can be beautiful, Sandra’s shoffice showcases clever use of flooring, lighting and wall treatments to all maximise light and create a cosy workspace that looks like it would be a great space to work in. Extra marks for the consideration that Sandra has given her furry co-workers with easy access – a nice comfy bed and water bowl."

The final winner was Claire Hughes from Scotland who is enjoying a double celebration as she also won the Wickes Home Office Award last week. All three winners take home a £250 voucher to spend at a range of wellknown shops.

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The rise of the shoffice

Sharon Dale, the best property writer in the UK, has put together a nice piece in the Yorkshire Post about shedworking, garden offices, and the rise of the shoffice. There are plenty of quotes from me about the whole issue as well as from Sheree Foy, a property consultant and buying agent who runs Source Harrogate – The Property Finders who is a recent convert to shedworking and now recommends it to clients. Here's what she told Sharon:

“Clients often ask me for advice when looking to buy a home that just needs a little more accommodation or if their existing houses need a bit of a space injection. I ask if they have thought about a garden office, gym or chillout space. The looks on people’s faces tell me that an image of a shed has sprung to mind – damp and freezing in winter and hot and humid in summer.”

To remove this notion, she shows them her Shoffice, constructed in western red cedar. Built by Ripon-based Oeco Garden Rooms, it measures five metres by four metres and costs £22,000 after she specified a number of upgrades including inset LED lights plus acoustic slab insulation in the walls and floor, acoustic plasterboard and acoustic Planitherm glass, which reduces noise from outside.

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The rise of the shoffice super-shed

"Step into my shoffice!" gasps the Daily Mail in their follow-up to a similar story in The Times (both hard on the heels of the Telegraph's piece last month). "£70,000 super-sheds where you can ditch the commute to work from home replace mega-basements as the latest must-have." Lots of great images at both links and interesting that Robin Chatwin from Savills Estate Agents tells the Thunderer: "Being a temporary structure, it won't command the same value per square foot as the house but it could up the value of a property by about £50,000."

Image courtesy Henley Offices ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Platform 5's shoffice

A lovely garden office by architects Platform 5 at the back of a 1950s terraced house in London's St John’s Wood with the brief "requiring the shoffice to be conceived of as a sculptural object that flowed into the garden space". Here's what they say about it:

The glazed office space nestles into an extruded timber elliptical shell, reminiscent of a wood shaving, and forms a small terrace in the lawn. The interior is oak lined and fitted out with a cantilevered desk and storage. Two rooflights - one glazed above the desk with another open to the sky outside the office bring light into the work space.

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New shed words enter the lexicon

Word expert Adam Jacot de Boinod has put together some of the more unusual words and phrases to enter the UK lexicon over the last 12 months for the Daily Mail. Among them are a couple of shedworkingesque ones:

SHED EFFECT: The benefits to health and wellbeing associated with the men’s shed movement, an initiative that encourages men, especially those who are elderly or socially isolated, to forge new friendships and work together on traditionally male-focused activities such as DIY projects.

SHOFFICE: A garden shed which is also used as an office.

The term 'shed effect" may be new to some readers (not to be confused with "the bicycle-shed effect"). Age UK Scotland brought out an excellent pdf report called The Shed Effect: Shedders in Scotland a couple of years ago which is well worth a look while The Daily Mash also has its own inimitable take on the concept. In addition to these two suggestions, the Cambridge Dictionary New Words blog also considers 'shedio' as an additional possibility.

We first started talking about the term 'shoffice' on Shedworking way back in 2007 (you can read about my thoughts in an excellent piece by Sharon Dale for The Yorkshire Post a couple of years ago) but have never used 'shedio' even once since we launched.  -------------------------------------------------
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A year of #shedworking

Last #SundayMorning @BBCRadio3 coming up. Join me in Garden Studio GS1 for some wonderful music including Debussy, Helene de Montgeroult, Morton Feldman, & seasonal treats from Sammartini, Yakiv Yatsynevych and Ella Fitzgerald.@bbcarts @BBCArtsPR @TandemProUK @BBCSounds pic.twitter.com/7RNWMSgpRc

— Sarah Walker (@drsarahwalker) December 18, 2021

Back at work or still working from home? Is a view of hte garden your new normal? See our blog on Shed Working - a "Shoffice" life could be for you! https://t.co/W4LpQUNeeQ #workingfromhome #shoffice #gardenoffice #homeofficegoals #workfromhome #homeofficesetup #shedworking pic.twitter.com/H1vzyYFmer

— The Posh Shed Co (@ThePoshShed) July 23, 2021

Sunny #shedworking -with my buddies🤣 almost too hot! #amwriting #sunnyScotland pic.twitter.com/TcGUiBXgpX

— Linda Strachan (@Strachanlinda) June 24, 2021

oo I love working in a shed...will be very interested to see why @Joannechocolat likes hers so much too #shedworking https://t.co/NtJ1y12mYt

— Cressida Cowell (@CressidaCowell) May 20, 2021

That’s my wood burner lit for the day! Brrrr but beautiful ☺️ #thecotswolds #shedworking pic.twitter.com/WTK5VPVqJs

— nic vickery (@nicvickerybrown) April 12, 2021

Horrendous trip to work this morning Toby and the team #shedworking @tobyfoster @BBCSheffield pic.twitter.com/wRyHCKyt2l

— Steve (@throapham1960) February 2, 2021

My office #MondayBlues #coastmagazine @coastmag #constantinebay #seascapes #shedworking #shedworkers #officeview #homeschool pic.twitter.com/i7ruPPWxi4

— Kath Hadden (@kathhaddenart) January 18, 2021

This came up again in my daily shed photos - It's a lovely space and great location - would love to do some #shedworking from this shed, whatever the weather https://t.co/2k0Axvedqm

— Andrew Wilcox I♥️sheds - Shed of the year (@unclewilco) January 5, 2021

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Shoffice

Shed + office = shoffice?

How to build a shoffice

We featured Platform 5's marvellous shoffice nearly six years ago on Shedworking. "The glazed office space nestles into an extruded timber elliptical shell, reminiscent of a wood shaving that unfurls to form a small terrace in the lawn," according to Platform 5. But how was it all put together?

There's a marvellous explanation on the morphstructures site (where there are more images), the structural engineers who built the oak-lined structure. Here's what they say about it:

The structural geometry is defined by laser-cut steel hoops at each end with stressed-skin timber panels spanning in between. This hybrid structure is then clad in curved oak boards. The inherent stiffness of the steel hoops minimises horizontal loads on the foundations, allowing simple proprietary footings to be utilised."

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A room of one's own: Why everybody needs a garden office

 An excellent piece in the Guardian by Heidi Scrimegeour asks "many small business owners run their operations from a corner of the kitchen table, but could the lack of a dedicated work space hold a business back?" And basically, with various examples, the answer is 'Yes'. Here's a snippet:

Carl Reader, author of The Startup Coach, is unsurprised by my delight at having a room of my own in which to work. He’s firmly of the view that you need a dedicated room free of distractions to run a successful business from home. “It takes an inordinate amount of time to regain your focus once you’ve been distracted at work, and the distractions at home can be even more invasive than those in an open-plan office,” he says. “A separate work space also makes it easier to take your mind off business when you’re not working, which in turn boosts productivity.”

And for fans of the 'shoffice' useage, it also contains what I suspect is the first ever use of the term 'ploffice' - children’s playroom + office.

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Garden offices in National Shed Week

Although it feels like a long way off, the fourth National Shed Week is speeding towards us so if you haven't signed your shed up to take part (and of course be in the running to scoop the top prize of Shed of the Year 2010) then please do nip across to readersheds.co.uk and follow the instructions to share your shed. There are already plenty of garden offices vying for the overall prize and the garden office category prize which you can browse here.
Pictured above is Clare Christian's shoffice
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Garden office case study virtual tour

We obviously like to feature case studies of garden office builds on Shedworking but this is something new to us, a case study virtual tour. In this case it's of a shed and office space (shoffice) from Cosy Garden Rooms in Melbourne, Derbyshire, for the Findon family, a multipurpose space replacing a summerhouse which was getting a bit long in the tooth.

The build itself is a 6m x 3m garden room on a concrete base with an internal partition wall to create a storage area, clad with composite slat cedar cladding and Hardie board composite, with s Anthracite UPVC doors and windows, 3m-wide double sliding patio doors, a full-height corner window, and a 300mm overhang along the front and right-hand side of the building.

Click the link to have a play with the virtual tour thingy.

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'His and hers' garden offices case study

An excellent case study on Coconut focuses on Maggie Johnson, Director and Client Liaison at Essex-based Executive Virtual Services, whose garden office is pictured above. She talks us through her reasons for going down the shedworking route, as she explains:

In April 2015 my ‘shed office’ was built, and it has made a huge impact on the growth and success of my business ever since.  Working in this way gives me the space and time to develop, without the distractions of everyday life. I have a team of VAs working with me now (sometimes from my office), and clients can come and meet with me here too.

So successful in fact that her husband has now followed suit with his own shoffice (below). Well worth a read via the link above.

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Jeanette Winterson's 'shed'

Jeanette Winterson writes nicely about her garden office/outbuilding in today's edition of The Times. Her piece, Free space for the mind, focuses on her 'shoffice', planning permission and her general enjoyment of her outbuilding. "For me, an outbuilding is an essential part of life," she writes. "I do not care if it is a shed or a caravan, a cabin or a beach hut...There is romance in an outbuilding, perhaps because it is nondomestic space, and perhaps because you can make it your own without being too sensible or practical. If you want state-of-the-art, fine, but anything between a plasma wall and a cave is good. An outbuilding can be very basic or very fancy. It is free space for your mind." Her 'shed' was built by Courtyard Designs. It's a nice article and, like everything she writes, well worth reading.

Why are shepherds' huts so popular?

A nice piece by friend of Shedworking Sharon Dale in the Yorkshire Post explores just this question. Here's a snippet:

Writer Arabella Cornelius, who lives near Thirsk, opted for a Yorkshire Hut Company shepherd’s hut rather than a “shoffice”, due to portability. The fact that it’s a moveable structure appealed to me as I know I can take it with me if I move. It’s a safer investment. Arabella, a copywriter, has a deluxe version with underfloor heating, a log burner, sink, a fold down desk and a bed. It is, she says, the subject of some envy.

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Lord Saville: shedworker

Lord Saville, who has been leading the inquiry into the 'Bloody Sunday' killings in 1972, is a luxury shedworker, the Daily Telegraph reveals. They report that his 41’ x 14’ shed office at his Surrey home contains a large hobby room, bathroom, and underground circular wine cellar, all built at a cost of around £60,000. The news has emerged as Lord Saville has recently applied for planning permission to install a chimney in the shoffice. Officers are recommending permission be granted.
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Boom time for garden offices

That's what the Yorkshire Post says in a new article by the country's best property journalist, the excellent Sharon Dale, 'How to buy or build a home office in the garden' (which also very kindly mentions Shedworking and the book of the site too). Here's a snippet:

“Clearly, we must have had a premonition about home working, as the shed has been a tremendous asset over the past three months in lockdown. It is three paces from the back door and has meant that I can still go to work and at the end of a long day, shut the door and return home. My journey time is less than five seconds,” says Ric, who adds: “I’ve been intrigued by those Zoom meetings that show people across the country making ad hoc office spaces in dining rooms and bedrooms. “I must say that an office in the garden is definitely the way forward. Sure, you miss the social interaction with office colleagues but the productivity in shed isolation is great and it’s only four steps away from the kettle. Shoffice working is the future.”

Image courtesy Cedar Garden Rooms  -------------------------------------------------
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The garden offices of famous fictional characters

A little bit of shedworking fun from the folks at HouseholdQuotes.co.uk who have had a think about what garden offices famous fictional characters might have made use of during the pandemic. Above is Michael Scott's from the US version of the office and below is Don Draper's from Mad Men.

Above is the inside of Dumbledore's shoffice from the Harry Potter series. Take a look at the link above for more details of these and Mr Burns's office from The Simpsons, the Duke of Hastings, Simon Basset's from Bridgerton, and Leslie Knope's office from Parks and Recreation. 

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Christi (CJ) Daugherty: shedworker

Novelist and journalist Christi (CJ) Daugherty (author of the bestselling Night School series) writes in her garden office - which she calls The Wordshed - in the south of England as she explains in this video below.


She is also one of the many shedworkers who enjoys the company of pets in her shoffice as these photos below indicate.

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