Shed Culture & Modular Buildings

Shed Culture & Modular Buildings

With the media showcasing all things ‘shed’ and ‘compact living’ such as Chanel 4’s “George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces” and regular features in the papers and lifestyle magazines; the British public are going bananas over sheds and shed-like cabins!

Now this is all well and good, until the Modular Buildings Industry gets swept-up in the media typhoon and thrown into the mix! A few very talented Architects are seemingly delighted when their modular buildings and garden rooms are being highlighted as worthy of “Shed Love” and suchlike; others are as proud as puffed up pigeons to be providing garden offices to the ever growing numbers of UK “Shed-Workers” and will advertise this wholeheartedly. Am I seriously the only person in this industry reeling back in horror? Don’t get me wrong, there are some beautiful little cabin-esque sheddy structures being promoted in the UK right now, one imported model recently caught my eye, cute little hexagonal structures which are used predominantly as BBQ huts. Pretty as they might be, they are… SHEDS. Cheap as chips and imported from abroad en masse as fast as those big Arctic trucks can carry them to grace the gardens of our shed-smitten British public.

Similarly, the amount of enquiries we receive asking us to build a Roundhouse at the same price and specification of one of these sheds is staggering. Only too often have I lain awake at night seriously contemplating starting a shed-company! There is an enormous difference between a cabin, shed, garden building, glamping pod, eco-pod, garden office, modular building and a high-specification eco-dwelling!

For us, a modular building is architecturally designed, it’s signed off by a structural engineer, it is built to comply (even if not completely necessary) to Buildings Regulations and it’s built as an additional room to your house or business – to be used throughout the depths of winter! It’s a house extension. Not a shed!

So, next time you’re drawn into the hazy glow of a pretty little cabin with the bitumen felt roof and flowers round the door, ask yourself what it is you need to use the space for – will you be happy shivering at the bottom of the garden mid-February wearing gloves as you attempt to type with your feet slowly turn blue, numbing on the frozen floorboards? Is it better to think “Modular Building” and all of the joy this can bring you, for many decades, all year round, or “pretty summer-house” which you will avoid at all costs post-November? Saving money now in the summer by purchasing a cheap alternative is only a temporary gain, whereas the ‘garden room’ is an asset which will stay with you and be utilised and loved for life.

I for one, have ceased to lie awake and ponder the short-term gains of the shed or summerhouse and am firmly back in the camp of High-specification ‘modular buildings’ because I know, that in twenty years time, (and in January) our Rotundas will still be used as much as they were when they were first installed. That makes me happy. Will the British public see the difference? Give it a few years, and I believe they will.

Blogpost written by Gemma Roe.