Gardens nowadays are being asked to work increasingly hard to tick all the boxes for their owners. Not only should they look good all year round, they should also be low maintenance and provide a functional and aesthetically pleasing 'extra room'. However, a changing climate is making such a brief for garden designers increasingly hard to meet while the evolution of the workplace means that more of us are now looking to work from home, at least part of the time. Garden buildings - summerhouses, studios, writing dens, bolt holes - are providing a convenient, neat, and in many cases, fun solution.
I have used many different buildings for clients over the years from off-the-shelf summerhouses, dressed up, painted and surrounded with plants, to bespoke garden studios, tailored around the client's specific requirements. I have brought rotting summerhouses back to life and designed contemporary structures to add edge and interest to suburban back gardens.
Garden buildings can provide a quirky, elegant or even intriguing focal point to a garden while adding value and 'sellability' to a property. Kit it out with a wood-burning stove, a living roof, or sound-proofing and a drum kit, and your dressed up garden shed will soon become the talk of the neighbourhood (and might even save your marriage). In A Green Room in the Garden below, you can see how our own garden studio came about.
