Designed by Tom Sandonato and Martin Wehmann, this 9x13 foot prefab is eco-friendly, and quick and easy to install.
The right to own and stuff outbuildings is part of the American tradition. Farms have barns, woodsheds, corncribs, and silos. In the cities we have carriage houses and garages. The suburbs have guesthouses, pool houses, gazebos and even more garages. But sometimes even that is not enough room.
Take a peek into our backyards and you’ll see that our love for small buildings and the stuff inside keeps growing. Some of these structures perform particular functions and some are just miniature warehouses for our extra junk.
But when design professionals really think both inside and outside the box, sheds and shacks ascend to another level.“THE SHACK”
In 2002, architect Jeffery Broadhurst of Broadhurst Architects in Rockville, Maryland had a vision come true in the wilds of West Virginia. “I always had dreams of owning mountain property and we finally got the chance,” he says. Broadhurst settled on 27 acres near a place called Upper Tract, which is 175 miles from his house.
The plot, which was a working farmstead with multiple outbuildings a century ago, then only contained a family cemetery and a bona fide haunted farmhouse where his family refused to sleep. Tent camping with his wife and two daughters got old fast.
Broadhurst used old vernacular farm buildings such as chicken coops and corn cribs for inspiration and conceived a simple space with a wood stove, sink, card table, sleeping quarters, a rain barrel for showers, and varmint-proof closets. An overhead garage door fitted with glass panels separates the shack from the great outdoors and an awning controls the sun.
The family makes a pilgrimage to the shack once a month, weather permitting. When Broadhurst shows pictures of the building to people they always say the same thing, “Hey, I’d like one of those myself.”“GARAGE BAND SHED”
A few years ago Janet Bloomberg and her partner Richard Loosle-Ortega, of Kube Architecture in the District, took a phone call from a TV producer doing a show about garages. “The goal was to take an existing garage and make it over,” says Bloomberg, “but when it was finished it couldn’t be a garage anymore.”
The designers were told to turn a garage in Bethesda into a practice space for the homeowner’s band. They were given a limited budget, three days for construction, and the garage that was on the site had to be demolished.
Kube pivoted the opening of the new building so it faced the backyard, which created a performance space. They cut slots resembling piano keys in a sidewall and covered them with clear Plexiglas® to bring in light. Corrugated metal sheathed the front façade and maple plywood was used on the rest.
A sliding barn-style door was installed and storage for amps and gear was added inside. Acoustical foam was laid between the rafters in concern for the neighbors. The end result was a number one hit with the homeowners. “They loved it,” says Bloomberg, “they really did, it was totally genuine.”
A strawbale construction garden shed designed by Sigi Koko, sports a "living roof."
STRAWBALE GARDEN SHED
Sigi Koko, principal of Down To Earth Design in DC, likes to design houses made from bales of straw. Yes, straw. The bales are stacked around a timber frame and are then covered in plaster. Koko teaches workshops on how to do this but a few summers ago she didn’t have a site for her new project.
As “luck” would have it, a tree fell on her mother’s garden shed in Pennsylvania creating the perfect site for a straw bale shed—except her mom didn’t want it replaced. “The old shed was rickety, groundhogs lived in it and it was full of spiders,” says Koko.
Koko eventually convinced her mom that the new shed would be much better and finally sealed the deal by including storage space for ladders. The architect began with a rubble trench foundation and used windows salvaged from a previous house restoration.
Straw bale workshop students supplied the labor and since Koko’s mother works with native plants, a living roof was the only way to go. “They absolutely love the new shed,” says Koko, “I get frequent phone updates about what’s happening on the roof, my mom calls saying, ‘the roof has blue flowers on it.’” So as you can see, even a humble shed can be a thing of beauty.
Scott Sowers is a regular contributor for ChesapeakeHome.
Contacts:
Broadhurst Architects: broadhurstarchitects.com or 301-309-8900
Down To Earth Design: buildnaturally.com or 202-302-3055
Kithaus through Design Within Reach: dwr.com or 800-944-2233
Kube Architecture: kube-arch.com or 202-986-0573
Modern Shed: modern-shed.com or 206-524-1188
Sweetwater Bungalows: sweetwaterbungalows.com or 800-587-5054
