Shedworking

Underground garden office

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 08:23:00 +0000

I was asked the following question on the Twitter yesterday so put out a call for help for anybody working in partially underground garden offices...

@shedworking Hey, I'm considering a garden office of some kind but looking to bury it in the ground so it's almost unnoticeable from above.
— Will Simpson (@willfilmmaker) May 31, 2012

I had several chats with people about Anderson Shelters but the likeliest response came from Robert Morrison who is building the garden office pictured above and below for a client in London later in the year. We will bring you more details of the build once it happens, probably around September. But an interesting early point - rather unusually, as Robert points out, the build will take place in front of the house, not at the back... ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Shedworking taking off in Los Angeles

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 09:34:00 +0000

Are garden offices finally reaching a tipping point in the USA? An interesting article by Lisa Boone in the Los Angeles Times looks at several examples (including The Office actor Rainn Wilson's designed by Make Architecture, pictured above) and says that "At a time when so many people are bringing the office home, there’s a growing desire for more separation, physical and psychological, between work and personal life." But here's the really interesting paragraph:

At a home tour organized by the American Institute of Architects’ Los Angeles chapter last month, three out of the five homes had a detached office. It’s an increasingly common solution for L.A.’s creative class, which does include the architects themselves. “Architects are very happy about this solution as they reduce overheard costs and have the opportunity to spend more time with their family,” said Carlo Caccavale, associate director of the Los Angeles AIA. For many, an office located at home but not in the home is proving to be the best way to reconcile work life with family life.

Also mentioned in the article is artist Janie Geiser , pictured below, who works in a 1955 Airfloat Land Yacht at her home.

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Aaron Cook: shedworker

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Thu, 31 May 2012 10:47:00 +0000

Taekwondo under 80kg world number one Aaron Cook, currently engaged in a bizarre bid to actually be included in the GB taekwondo Olympic team, is a shedworker. He has trained in the specially-designed shed built by his father at his home since the age of eight. "It was a pretty big space for an eight-year-old," he said. "It meant I was training more than anyone else my age." Here's how the Daily Mail describes it:

"The shed smells new, looks like the inside of a sauna and in one corner there are three mannequins — all called Bob — which Cook uses as targets. Each Bob wears a helmet and jacket fitted with sensors linked to a scoring pad so Cook knows if his kicks win him points."

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Homestead Timber Buidlings - Garden Rooms as used by Kirsty Allsopp

my cool shed by Jane Field-Lewis

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Wed, 30 May 2012 10:55:00 +0000

A decade is a long time in shed books. Ten years ago, Gordon Thorburn's hugely successful book 'Men And Sheds' was published featuring an entirely male lineup of shedworkers, hobbyists and Suffragen Bishops, photographed by Laura Forrester in black and white (one per double spread), mostly unsmiling, all from the UK, and in very traditional sheds. It helped - as did the previous year's launch of readersheds.co.uk - to kickstart renewed interest in shedlike atmospheres.

Ten years on, and with Sally Coulthard's Shed Chic book in between, we now have Jane Field-Lewis's new book 'my cool shed - an inspirational guide to stylish hideaways and workspaces'. The huge number of photographs are in full colour, the sheds are from all over the world, and the sheddies are both male and female. There's even a sourcebook at the end to help you get the look as well as gorgeous endpapers (see image below). The term 'shedworking' is now used without explanation. Much has changed.

my cool shed is split into several sections looking at artists, musicians, retreats, gardeners, writers, workspaces and time out. Many of the people featured are shedworkers (indeed plenty of the 35 garden offices and sheds featured have appeared on this blog or in the Shedworking book) which underlines again how much has changed in shed useage since 2002. Each entry also has a section called 'style notes' which allows Jane - who is a professional multi-disciplinary stylist - to talk through the look of each shed with her expert eye.

Jane writes nicely and there's no pretentious gobbledygook. It's a lively read and her hard work in tracking down some marvellous sheds (I particularly like French artist Richard Texier's studio at the end of a pier) has paid off in spades. But what really makes it stand out are the several hundred photographs by Tina Hillier. She has absolutely got to grips with each of the sheds, picking out intriguing details inside as well as atmospheric exterior shots - even if you're familiar with some of these sheds, there are so many new shots of them that you won't be disappointed.

You should certainly buy my cool shed (published by Pavilion in hardback at £14.99) - not only is Jane a decent person, this will definitely be the best book about sheds published this year.

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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.

Atelier Haverkamp

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Tue, 29 May 2012 09:38:00 +0000

A 35 m2 'garden office' by Todd Saunders, Annie Pednault and Geneviéve St-André for the artist Reinhard Haverkamp in Bergen, Norway. It has a, large, one room working space and small loft which is used as an office. Todd says that the atelier windows are placed so that the space receives a variety of light and shadows throughout the day. You can see more of his shedworking designs here. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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What working in a garden office sounds like

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Mon, 28 May 2012 12:28:00 +0000

listen to ‘I am enjoying working out of the office shed today. Lots of nice sounds.’ on Audioboo

Courtesy of Nigel Oseland -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Video tour of shepherd's hut workshop

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Mon, 28 May 2012 08:57:00 +0000

Many of you have commented how much you enjoyed Plankbridge's shepherd's hut garden at Chelsea Flower Show last week so we're very pleased to bring you Richard's guided tour around the workshop to show you how the magic is created. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

It's chips for Harry Ramsden's fish shed

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Sat, 26 May 2012 14:11:00 +0000

Extremely bad news as the historic shed in which Harry Ramsden started selling fish and chips 90 years ago has been demolished because it had rather too much asbestos in its makeup. The Yorkshire Post reports that the owners of the now slightly timeworn hut - through which a tree was growing - were keen to preserve it but the discovery of asbestos meant it required immediate professional disposal. ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Garden office music room

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Fri, 25 May 2012 09:25:00 +0000

Here's a rather impressive eDEN Garden Room which is acoustically insulated so that it holds the sound in the room and doesn't disturb the neighbours (apparently the client likes playing loud music in his spare time). It also has rather nice folding doors with aluminium frame.
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Dunster House, the leading UK company for Log Cabins and Garden Offices sponsors Friday posts

Nicola Morgan: shedworker

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Thu, 24 May 2012 13:47:00 +0000

Author and book publishing expert Nicola Morgan (aka the Crabbit Old Bat) has just become a shedworker, now working from what she calls her Crabbit Hutch. She was kind enough to answer a few questions about the experience:

Why a garden office?
Easy: smallish flat and huge garden; the need for a spare room which people could actually sleep in; the desire actually to “go” to work instead of being surrounded by it. Twenty-five years of working at home had left me needing to separate work from home, create some routine. And I wanted to commute, with a real briefcase!

Has it worked?
Well, it’s only Day Two so routine is possibly not the right word, but I can tell you a load of pleasures I’ve found. With the door open, all I hear is birdsong. With the door closed, I’ve discovered it’s totally soundproof so I can play Coldplay very loudly. And sing. (The glass wall makes dancing less recommended.) All I see are rhododendrons, azalea, a castor oil palm, pieris and orange blossom – and, lest I forget that this is Edinburgh, Calton Hill through the trees. It’s fabulously insulated and I am already absolutely in love with it. It is actually beautiful, which I wasn’t expecting. Suddenly, the garden has a purpose. So now I walk to work with my briefcase. All that’s missing is a water cooler. But I’m really looking forward to the office party.

Who supplied it?
Booths Garden Studios is the company. The guys installed the whole thing in a day and a half of pouring, mud-churning rain, without a word of complaint. The special design means no foundations, just four adjustable corner struts, so it can be built on any surface. Pretty special and highly recommended.
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Homestead Timber Buildings - For that Office in your Garden

Sheds at Chelsea Flower Show: photo essay

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Wed, 23 May 2012 08:07:00 +0000

The Shedworking staff had a most enjoyable day at the Chelsea Flower Show yesterday and took the opportunity to take in the many shedlike atmospheres on display. Here's a quick look at some of our favourites, starting above with Jo Thompson's lovely caravan-centred show garden which won a silver gilt.

There were plenty of people enjoying the Rooftop Workplace of Tomorrow garden which won silver.

Below is the shaded cabanon in the L'Occitane Immortelle Garden

And here is Plankbridge's shepherd's hut in their own silver-winning garden. We stopped for a long chat with Richard from Plankbridge about its construction.

Vicky Harris’s stone crofter’s hut in her Naturally Dry garden

The Artisan Retreats area where five sturdy Malvern Collection summerhouses were turned into working spaces.

Nigel Dunnett’s RBD Blue Water Garden featured a lovely conical-roofed trullo, a traditional hut from Puglia.

And finally, the shepherd’s stone hut in Borut Benedejcic’s Pepa’s Story Artisan Garden.

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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.

Voting gets underway for Shed of the Year 2012

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Tue, 22 May 2012 06:44:00 +0000

Public voting has started on readersheds.co.uk and will carry on until Saturday June 16 so do pop along and make your mark. There are several categories including of course garden office. "We have had some brilliant sheds added this year," says organiser Uncle Wilco. "The sheddies always amaze me and this year some unique examples of spaces to get away from it all." The top eight sheds as voted for by the public will then go forward to the final where a panel of judges - including Neil Gaiman, Sarah Beeney, Uncle Wilco and myself - will decide on which one should be crowned Shed of the Year 2012. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday posts are sponsored by 3rdSpace modular garden rooms.
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Shepherd's hut at Chelsea Flower Show

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Mon, 21 May 2012 08:14:00 +0000

An early look at Plankbridge's shepherd's hut at Chelsea Flower Show, thanks to our Garden Shows editor Emma Townshend. Shedworking will be reporting back from the show on Wednesday after our visit tomorrow but this is high on the list of gardens we want to see (stand SEW7) since it represents a writer's garden office. We're particularly intrigued by the sound of the light area on the floor created by scenic artist Jonathan Holbrook where the writer has walked up and down while wearing their thinking cap. The attention to detail is certainly impressive - there are also scrapes and knocks on the wall where said writer has given it a bash with his chair, while the desk's writing service is slightly biffed too through hard use. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

How to make sheds cool

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Sat, 19 May 2012 08:18:00 +0000

"The challenge for three teams of architecture students from Woodbury University in Burbank: Design the coolest, smartest cabin that you can dream up. The catch: Your building materials have to come from an ordinary, not-so-cool shed kit from Lowes."

Read the rest of this interesting feature at the LA Times. ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Park Farm Design

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Fri, 18 May 2012 15:57:00 +0000

Over the last two years Park Farm Design has been contacted regularly to help with the design and build of garden room style buildings. They work with customers to create individually styled garden rooms which incorporate our high performance range of doors and windows in timber, aluminium or alu-clad. Park Farm have designed, supplied and installed their bespoke range of bi-fold doors, sliding doors and more traditional doors and windows to more than 100 garden rooms, offices, music rooms and gyms throughout the UK.

"In 2009 we crossed paths with Roomworks Ltd who we have since built a strong partnership with," says project design manager Lee Davenport. "Whilst we are Roomworks' chosen supplier for doors and windows we also supply to many private customers looking to take on a design and build garden room project themselves. Our experience and knowledge allows us to work with private customers who are looking to achieve their perfect garden room in a DIY fashion."

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Dunster House, the leading UK company for Log Cabins and Garden Offices sponsors Friday posts

The Shed Show

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:44:00 +0000

Monkworking: The Monastery

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:37:00 +0000

This is one of the most relaxing indoor shedworking structures we've seen on Shedworking. It's for Netlife Research (a 'user-experience consultancy') and is the work of Eriksen Skajaa Architects who were asked to rethink Netlife's offices to create new spaces for reflection and creativity. Their response? "When faced with the challenge of how to create three spaces for silence and the occasional phone call we proposed a Monastery with a monastery garden."

The walls are white pigmented birch veneer and the inner partitioning is based on the remains of existing brick walls. There are various niches dotted around, some to house plants, others big enough to be windows, and one serving as a bench. A lovely space in which to work.

Photos by Ivan Brodey.

Via dezeen

Artisan Retreats at Chelsea Flower Show

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Wed, 16 May 2012 10:14:00 +0000

There are various treats on store at this year's Chelsea Flower Show - Jo Thompson's delightful shedlike caravan, Plankbridge's shepherd's hut, the Rooftop Workplace of Tomorrow - but we're looking forward in particular to seeing the Artisan Retreats section.

Five models of garden office and summerhouse structures provided by RHS Chelsea exhibitor The Malvern Collection will be on show in the Ranelagh Gardens section of the showground, each one decorated by well-known designers and artists. The idea is to provide inspiration for people to become shedworkers (or at the very least, do up their sheds a bit). According to the RHS, the five are:

* ‘A Book Binder’s Workshop’ designed by Vicki Conran Full of interesting materials, papers, textiles and beautiful hand tools as well as a selection of books in varying stages of binding and casing.
* ‘Needlepoint Haven’ designed by Kaffe Fassett A peaceful environment designed for people to do needlework featuring yarns, canvases and examples of needlepoint plus a wing chair covered in needlepoint images of fruit, flowers and vegetables.
*‘Vintage Inspired Retreat’ designed by Orla Kiely Kiely's nostalgic retreat is a space for relaxing, thinking, reading and being inspired. It will be very colourful and filled with plant pots and vintage gardening books.
* ‘A Passementerie Passion’ designed by Annabel Lewis of VV Rouleaux Described as "a blaze of colour and bedecked with every kind of ribbon and trim". Garden furniture is used indoors with hanging baskets turned into chandeliers.
* ‘Wild at Heart at Home’ designed by Nikki Tibbles Look out for comfortable armchairs, a woodburning stove, rugs, shelves of books and vases of roses. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Stable Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here.

Mushroom shed

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:54:00 +0000

Fancy working in a toadstool? One of the most intriguing garden shed structures at Grand Designs this year, the LOL from Lancashire based Outdoor Pods. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Francis Wheen's shed disaster

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:32:00 +0000

Biographer, essayist and Private Eye deputy editor Francis Wheen suffered what all shedworkers dread last month, the total destruction of his (two-storey) timber shed by fire, pictured above. In addition to the garden office's demise, the flames also took with them his library of books, letters and other papers, including an unfinished novel and CDs. We mentioned it on the Shedworking Facebook page but didn't go into details here because they were so scanty. Filling us in on the detail is a nice piece on openDemocracy by Wheen's partner Julia Jones. It appears that the various electronic equipment may have caused the fire. Here's a snippet:

"The destruction of a library – or a lifetime time’s work (to date) – is a pivotal event. In Francis’s case I’m guessing that Friday 13 April 2012 will be felt as a demarcation point on many different levels – not least his (and our) attitude to paper. The neatly stacked print-out of his novel-in-progress could not ensure its survival any more than the back-up copy on the memory stick in his desk drawer. Cue: sudden family conversion to remote forms of storage. I use Dropbox: He is now emailing every day’s new work to a location somewhere in the vaults of the Google Empire."

More photos of the catastrophe at Do Authors Dream Of Electric Books and here's Wheen on Radio 4 discussing the nightmare himself.

listen to ‘"It merely burned down 5,000 books..." Francis Wheen on the destruction of his shed - The World at One, BBC Radio 4’ on Audioboo

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What are your rules of shedworking?

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:36:00 +0000

Edinburgh-based author and publishing guru Nicola Morgan is just about to join the growing worldwide ranks of shedworkers as she explains on her blog. Before the move, she asked her many readers to come up with new rules for how she should behave in her garden office (as well as actually name it). Suggestions so far have focused on what she shouldn't do/have, including not having internet access, no fizzy drinks, no shoes or chocolate, but having a kettle and fridge. But it got the Shedworking staff thinking about garden office dos and don'ts and we wondered what your suggestions would be? -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Rooftop Workplace of Tomorrow

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Fri, 11 May 2012 15:53:00 +0000

One to look out for at the Chelsea Flower Show this year is Patricia 'Aralia' Fox's Show Garden in association with Walworth Garden Farm and sponsored by RBS), Rooftop Workplace of Tomorrow.

Patricia describes the garden as "an extension of the working office utilising unused urban rooftop space, turning it into a place of beauty. It is an inspiring, relaxing and yet thought provoking environment, in the midst of a concrete jungle". On the theme of 'technology meets tranquillity', in addition to a herbal tea bar, it will feature various modern technologies such as wi-fi, laptops, smartphones and tablets throughout the garden. "An office doesn’t need to be inside, nor does it need to have four walls," she says. "This is how our workplaces could look in tomorrow’s world - or so we wish!"

Conferences can be held in the lounge area under the weatherproof canopy where there will be a 3m x 3m video/projection screen. All the furniture in the garden - including contemporary hanging chairs - will be made using ‘up-cycled’ plastic materials and the decking will be bamboo.

Follow the progress of the garden at its own blog which is particularly interesting for those of you keen on green roofs.

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Dunster House, the leading UK company for Log Cabins and Garden Offices sponsors Friday posts

Red Maple: shedworkers

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:01:00 +0000

Red Maple - an IT support and solutions provider based in the North East of England - not only supports the concept of mobile working, the firm's team is entirely home-based and the HQ is a garden office. Indeed, so successful has this arrangement been that the company, which has completed IT contracts in London, Dublin and China and specialises in working with SMEs and entrepreneurs is now expanding its workforce.

Speaking from his garden office on Tyneside, Red Maple's founder Mike Proud (pictured above) said: “If you’re going to sell something like mobile working, it makes sense to use it to its full potential – and the actual benefit is visible to the client. With everyone working from home, we can cut out the road miles from commuting to an office, and to a client site. And for those visits to client sites, we’re looking to trial the range of electric vehicles that are now coming out. We’re also working on a deal with a solar panel provider to offer staff discounts to those staff that can use it.

“If we can gain from new technologies and skills, it makes sense to pass that on to businesses within the North East and further afield, as well as providing employment opportunities.”

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Dunster House, the leading UK company for Log Cabins and Garden Offices sponsors Friday posts

Nuts and bolts: fitting out your garden office

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Thu, 10 May 2012 10:20:00 +0000

Continuing our regularly irregular look at various bits and bobs of shedworking, today we're looking at the importance of garden office interior decor. While more and more people are embracing the shedworking lifestyle and using it to work from to set up their own businesses, staring at the same four walls day in day out can be rather boring so make sure you spruce the area up, just as you would do with your house.

How you decorate the interior is up to you (and we'd strongly recommend the book Shed Chic by Sally Coulthard as inspiration), but one possibility is to bring the greenery indoors. So consider co-ordinating your space with the outside environment, perhaps painting it green and bringing the vegetation inside with colourful plant pots and flowers. We've also seen nice examples of garden offices which have fairly straightforward traditional office furniture, but are then finished off with garden benches, patio chairs and indeed hammocks to add a bit of variety.

Obviously there are lots of places to buy these things but one that we like the look of is Trueshopping. Pictured above is an eDEN Garden Room which very much incorporates the horticultural ethic in its build. If you've got any decorating tips, please do leave a comment.

Garden offices and Shed of the Year 2012 (video)

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Wed, 09 May 2012 09:07:00 +0000

To help publicise Shed of the Year 2012, I recently took part in a special event organised by event sponsors Cuprinol to encourage people to take part in the increasingly popular annual competition. And here's the video. If you haven't entered your garden office or other shedlike atmosphere yet, get your skates on as entries close on May 20. Click here to enter. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Stable Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here.