A little insight to WAH (working at home), I think I took it to an extreme as I’m currently building a home office at the bottom of my garden.
My partner and I live in a two-bed Victorian terrace house in east Bristol, a short distance from my normal place of work. Prior to us moving in, the place had been rented for the last 10 years, so we’re keen to make it our own.
Whilst the gcp office is currently closed, we are using our spare room as our office space, we feel very fortunate to have a space designated for work. I have used this space over the last three years for home study, where I have recently completed my Part 1 in Architecture, a course I have been able to do with the support of gcp. This has made this transition period easy for me but I can imagine it has been a challenge for others.
We did, however, want to create a a self-contained space, separate from the home, that could be used as a purpose-built workspace. We are calling it a studio to sound fancy! I think it is important the place of work is different to our home (and ideally separate to your living space), this allows space for designation and focus.
A bit on the design process....
I submitted a planning application for our kitchen extension back in July last year, at this point I also included plans for a loft extension and outline plans for a studio space at the bottom of the garden. We were wary that we needed to replace the loss of existing shed space, which is very functional and quite a necessity. I’ve also accumulated a lot of tools over the years so needed some extra messy storage space (the tools have somewhat dug a hole into our budget). We finally secured planning for the extension but is unfortunately on hold due to the pandemic, a chance to start the studio!
The build process.…
I started by removing the shed and its base, preserving any clean (ish) stones where possible. I had done a fair amount of research into the most appropriate foundation for the type of build we wanted. I ended up using the click EcoBase grid foundation system, which provides a really strong, durable foundation which is well-drained for outdoor buildings. They are often used for sheds and even grass driveways, an alternative to a concrete base in my scenario.
Once the base and treated timber floor joist were down, I started to build the walls panels, these consisted of 89mm untreated timber studs, 9mm OSB. These would then be ready to receive 25mm timber roofing batten and the 20mm cladding.
I had a sequencing challenge with cladding the rear and side panels - as we wanted to take full use of the width of the garden. I came up with the solution to fully clad these panels, which would be temporarily secured in place, 500mm inside the eventual building perimeter. This will be fun when it comes to lifting them in place - not so easy with the social distancing measures in place!
We are dividing the space into two, two thirds will be designated for office space and one third for shed and storage space, including the mower and BBQ in the winter months.
I started to erect the front panels which would hoist the new office sliding doors. The sliding opening will be on the RHS as we have a pond just on the left of the picture. You can see the Iris’s are starting to grow again! Hopefully a nice view out of the non sliding pane.
I was inspired by the lock-up building at the Arnolfini, down on the waterfront in the centre of Bristol. I love its simple form and how its colour has evolved over time. I will be including cladding the ‘secret’ doors on the shed section.
It has been a challenge to secure materials during this period of lockdown, I can imagine the difficulties contractors must have been going through. I was eventually able to source most of the timber from a merchant in Avonmouth, which actually specialise in building horse stables.
“It finally feels like progress is being made now I have started to fix the cladding to the front elevation. The lifting of the side panel will hopefully happen soon, then I can focus on the roof and making the building watertight. We keep you updated with our progress.
If we are able to work from home more so in the future, after this whole ordeal is over, this will hopefully be the perfect space in which to design in.”
