Guest Post by Alex Johnson from Shedworking. More next week on Alex’s appearance on Home Office Warrior.

‘Shedworking’ is the term which I came up with in 2005 when I started publishing The Shed magazine for people who work in sheds and shedlike atmospheres to cater for the growing numbers of people working from home in garden offices, small ‘shedlike’ buildings in unused space in their back gardens and yards. Over the last decade we have seen the miniaturisation of the office workplace and a small shed which once only housed stepladders and plant pots can now be insulated from the cold, fitted with its own electrics, and can link you to anywhere in the world.

The famous shedworkers of history who have attracted the most attention are artists, composers and writers such as Philip Pullman, Roald Dahl, Henry Thoreau, Gustav Mahler and Henry Moore. But nowadays you’re just as likely to find accountants at the bottom of the garden as you are sculptors because garden offices are becoming big business. And like homeworking in general, shedworking is becoming increasingly popular around the globe. “Once shabby, now showy, the shed has become a haven for the home office, art studio, sewing niche or guy getaway,” says Jane Hulse in the Los Angeles Times (The shed goes chic, August 19, 2007). “It’s cheaper than adding on, goes up faster and looks nothing like a place to stash the lawn mower.” She’s absolutely right.

The writer and artist John Ruskin argued that our buildings must mean something to their inhabitants, that their spiritual concerns are as important as the material ones. For Ruskin, buildings were not just bricks and mortar, they were embedded with emotion. Shedworking is as much a statement of intent as it is a piece of architecture.

Next week: the particular attractions of shedworking

For a copy of The Shed magazine, please email Alex at alex@splashmedia.co.uk or go to Shedworking for daily updates