For more and more of us, home is no longer just the place where we live. It's also the place where we work. But most homes weren't designed for this. To do your best work, you need a separate space: peaceful, quiet, uncluttered, with just enough separation between work life and home life.

Luckily, what a lot of homes do have is underused space at the end of the garden that can be turned into an office, a quiet escape, a gym, or a space for creativity. An extra room of the house that feels more like being in the garden than indoors.

This Garden Studio design pattern is intended to meet this need. It's simple, comfortable but also architecturally elegant. Garden buildings should improve and be part of the garden, not just take up space in it.

You may not need planning permission or building regulations approval

The studio has been specifically designed to fit within the permitted development rules in England, so in most cases you won't need to apply for planning permission. If the internal area of your building is less than 15m², you may not need building regulations approval either. Note that slightly different rules apply in Scotland and Wales. Beyond the UK, every country has its own rules for this. Make sure you check them before you start.

Garden storage built-in

We have developed two variants of the design. One includes a discreet, built-in garden storage space. So if your studio replaces an existing garden shed, you'll still have the storage space you need.

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Flexible design

With WikiHouse Skylark you have a huge amount of design flexibility. Windows and doors can be positioned anywhere you like, even using the same set of blocks. You can also build larger or smaller versions by adding or removing 600mm modules. If you'd like help adapting the design, we offer a design service.

Any finishes

Once you have your WikiHouse chassis, how you finish it is completely up to you. Internally you can line the space in a wide variety of materials. Likewise, externally you can clad the structure using almost any material. If the back or side of your structure is against a wall or fence anyway, and won't be seen either by you, or your neighbours, you might choose a more low-budget material on that face.

Install it yourself

Like all WikiHouse structures, the main chassis kit can be rapidly-assembled, even without traditional construction skills. If you are comfortable doing general DIY you should be able to build the entire project yourself, although you may need to get an electrician to install the lighting and power. Alternatively you can hire an installer to build your garden studio for you.

Carbon negative

You can use any type of foundation, but we recommend using steel ground-screws, which can be recovered and re-used at the end of the building's life. Avoiding the use of any concrete saves work and carbon. One of the benefits of building lightweight reusable timber buildings is that not only are the upfront Carbon emissions of the project much lower than conventional builds, but your project can actually be carbon negative, due to the atmospheric carbon stored in the blocks. At the end of its life, the building can be disassembled and the blocks re-used, or responsibly recycled. In every sense, the design aims to leave the minimum footprint.