THE SITE AND ITS CHALLENGES

This artist studio garden room would be set at the rear of the property. The house has a front facing garden. The existing area was used as storage via a couple of sheds and for parking of two cars. The area the garden room would be sited also sits on the boundary to the house at the rear. This would limit the overall height of the finished building.

Landscaping would need to be thoughtfully created to give the illusion of a new garden space that also could house two cars but be a retreat for the family at other times.

The plot available for the artist studio garden room was wider at one end, narrowing dramatically to the far end. The design would need to be adapted to make the working/living space the most useable and the storage space to sit within the narrower end.

The area is additionally shadowed by the main dwelling so making sure the rooms was light and airy whilst ultimately being secure was one of the major challenges.

IDEAS AND CONCEPTS

After our initial meeting it was clear that some clever design techniques would need to be used to deliver the type of garden room the client was dreaming about. Sitting down to sketch, we discarded various ideas until we hit upon a secure yet light design solution that we could share with our client.

Once approved we could then use that design for the basis of creating the technical specifications.

THE HUG SOLUTION

The area available was a redundant space to the rear of the property bordered by large leylandii trees and a retaining wall. After removing both and clearing the site it became clear that the ideal shape was a triangular wedge shape, the storage area being in the thinner part of the wedge. This storage area was simply racked with various height shelving for general garden tools.

The remaining larger area formed the office space and artist studio. A bold orange wall, with a blue band of colour around the recess of a large roof light window created a fun bright creative space. Lime green off the shelf storage and a small orange sofa added more practical elements into the space.

A 2.4m large patio door along with the roof light provides lots of natural light. The outside elevation was rendered and painted white to tie in with the main property and the natural pine cladding disguised the storage area. The building was insulated and had internet hard wired in to create an all year round working environment.

Our favourite part of the design is the industrial sliding door that covers the patio doors to effectively disguise the home office and add an extra level of security. The sliding door can also be accessed from inside, so can control the sunlight coming through the large glass doors. Added security comes from sensored outdoor lighting hidden in the large overhanging angular soffit.

A Secure Garden Room for everyone

This was an unusual size request with a very long available space that progressively narrowed towards the fence line. The actual available dimensions were 8.7m x 3.5m (narrowing to 1.65m).

Alongside the artist studio working space, the customer also wanted to be able to store garden tools, bikes and other sundry items. Creating a storage space that was separate but linked became crucial to the design solution.

The sliding doors and velux allowed us to offer a solution that was light and airy when in use and secure when not. Linking the storage into the design allowed us to create a building that solved all the clients needs and still looked beautiful.