We were lucky enough to visit the Chelsea Flower Show last week. One of the themes of the show gardens that we saw, was the blurring of the lines between living space and the garden.
Whilst we didn’t see any garden offices in the show gardens. We did see lots of garden structures which reminded us of a garden office type building. The designers of these gardens - amongst the best in the world - had placed their buildings at the heart of their garden design.
We were struck at how well the building and garden flowed as one connected space. This connection was successful partly because there was no division, like doors between the building and the garden. So the user could just glide from one zone to another.
As beautiful as the buildings on display were, they are not places you could spend time in all year round, as they were effectively open to the elements.
The visit to the show got us thinking about how garden office designers blur the lines between office and garden. Whilst creating a building that can be used every day of the year.
Garden office designers create the connection between office and garden with clever choices of door and the positioning of windows.
Bi-fold doors for instance can fold back to create an uninterrupted connection between the office and garden, yet provide protection and warmth, when the weather is not so great. Floor to ceiling glazed panels also create this connection, in an easy and cost effective manner.
The positioning of glazing plays a huge part in blurring the lines between inside and outside spaces. They may be positioned to create the feeling of more space or to frame a particular view of your garden.
You might choose to use a narrow floor to ceiling glazed window to catch a glimpse of your garden. Or desk height windows to give you a cockpit like view of your garden.
A clever trick we have seen several garden office designers use is to place a rectangular window, sometimes called a lozenge window high up in a wall, just to catch a glimpse of the sky. You could take this concept a step further by including a window in your garden office roof.
This blurring of lines take away from the Chelsea Flower Show is very easy for you to implement in your own design. It's not expensive to implement, it just takes some thought at the design stage.
Next step:
Talk to your garden office supplier to identify the ways you can position the doors and windows, to blur the lines between your office and garden.