Green building

14 October 2014


Demand for garden buildings, both traditional and contemporary, is growing. Sally Spencer reports

According to a recent report on the garden products market by MTW Research, sales of garden products are set to outpace UK GDP in 2015 and top £5bn by 2018.

The research says that key sectors forecast to perform well include garden buildings and this probably comes as no surprise to companies such as Forest Garden, which are already experiencing a resurgent market. "As consumer confidence has improved, the garden buildings market has grown with it," said Jon Gomersall, Forest's sales and marketing director.

There are five additions to the company's summerhouse range for 2015, including The Stroud - a traditional, compact garden building suitable for smaller gardens. The summerhouse is manufactured from pressure-treated overlap timber and styrene glazing.

Scotts of Thrapston has also seen strong sales of its summerhouses.

"We've had a busy summer with building deliveries and installations booked until the end of November," said Kathryn Morris, from the company's summerhouse sales team.

"The current best seller is the Burghley summerhouse, which is ideal for alfresco dining, somewhere to relax in the garden or a hobby room and is popular with the optional rotating base, which allows the building to follow the sun."

It's not just summerhouses that are enjoying strong sales.

"Log cabin demand has been really strong through a number of our sales channels," said Mr Gomersall. "[During the recession] people were looking for cost-effective storage solutions, but now they're looking at investing in a log cabin, which can cost over £7,000 retail." The log cabins open up all kinds of functional and lifestyle opportunities for customers, as they can be used for additional living space, garden offices, artist studios, outdoor gyms, playrooms and so on. The cabins are constructed from logs machined with chalet cut corners, a joint with a six-sided profile, which provides maximum resilience and stability against the weather.

The range is available in four log thicknesses - 28mm, 34mm, 44mm and 58mm - with double-glazing being standard on the 44mm and 58mm models. Adjustable door hinges, mortised locking door mechanisms and roof shingles come as standard on all models and opening windows on most.

Of course, garden buildings don't have to be traditional, as "Dovelight", a structure in an Edinburgh back garden, ably demonstrates.

Nearing completion in south Edinburgh's Colinton district, Dovelight is a unique 'therapy pavilion' that demonstrates the potential use of parametric modelling and digital fabrication tools on even the smallest of timber projects.

"Originally developed for the aerospace and automotive industries, parametric modelling is now coming of age in the construction industry, with extraordinary applications emerging around the globe," said Peter Wilson, architect and director of the Wood Studio research centre at Edinburgh Napier University's Institute for Sustainable Construction.

Dovelight, a one-off, all-curved monocoque plywood structure by David Blaikie Architects, sits to the rear of a large Victorian villa and, while clearly not intended for repetitive manufacture, certainly makes innovative use of the plywood sheet material employed.

"No two structural ribs in the building have the same profile and their fabrication was carried out by a boat builder using a relatively basic CAD package to generate manufacturing details that were then transferred directly to a CNC cutting machine," said Mr Wilson.

"The pavilion's external cladding is formed from double layers of 6mm sapele plywood strips procured from an FSC-certified source.

Eschewing straight lines in its exterior surface, the cladding elements have been formed in double curves around the main structural ribs.

"The pavilion's rich gloss finish has been achieved with multiple applications of a marine varnish that has a UV inhibitor in its chemistry."

Scotts of Thrapston has developed a range of buildings for the RHS
The Dovelight 'therapy pavilion' breaks away from the traditional image of a garden building
The Woodbury is Forest’s largest log cabin