So when is a shed not a shed? According to Bespace Urban Design, it’s when it’s a ‘garden cube’ built in modern structural engineered timber panels.
The brainchild of brothers Mark and Neil Warburton, Birmingham-based Bespace launched two years ago to create bespoke garden buildings dripping with green kudos.
“Anybody can put up a garden building, so from the outset we asked ourselves how we could be different,” said Mark Warburton. “Our aim was to build truly bespoke ‘cubes’ using the most innovative, environmentally-sound materials.”
This concept led to Bespace opting for structural insulated panels (SIPs) as their core material. Their particular type comprises two 12mm sheets of OSB bonded either side of a slab of polyurethane insulation. These are pre-cut to specification by its supplier and delivered to site ready for erection.
“They come in 600 and 1,200mm-wide cassettes and are very easy to handle,” said Warburton. “And with a 150mm-thick panel we can achieve a U-value of 0.17.”
Bespace, he added, is also particular about using OSB rather than plywood SIPs – and as a result has become a bit of a poster company for the JOSB Done! OSB generic marketing campaign. “The quality and accuracy of OSB is consistent, while you can struggle with plywood panels with voids, splitting and weak spots,” he said. “We also know the timber is from a sustainable source as it’s FSC-certified, whereas there are issues with certain plywood imports, which Greenpeace highlighted in its Setting a New Standard report last year.”
The cubes are set on a reinforced concrete base, with the SIPs fixed to a timber sole plate and screwed and glued to each other. The roofs are covered in RubberBond EPDM and finished in anything from aluminium to sedum.
“The core structure can be weathertight in two days, ” said Warburton. “To cut site time further, we can construct the cube and crane it in, complete, depending on the size, with doors and windows already fitted.”
Internally the buildings are plasterboarded or clad in oiled birch ply. Flooring fitted to date includes wood, laminate, carpet and recycled rubber, and outside they are wrapped in DuPont Tyvek waterproof breathable membrane, before cladding in unfinished western red cedar.
The cubes come ready wired with a ring main and lighting circuit, and free-standing versions can have wall-mounted electric heaters or low energy inverter-driven climate control systems. Final fit-out can also include kitchenettes, shower rooms and toilets. The more complex the finish, the longer it takes, but usually the buildings are ready in a week.
Bespace has supplied cubes as home offices, entertainment and playrooms, gyms and summer houses. And, in the current threadbare housing market, it is targeting the ‘improve not move’ customer, promoting them as multi-purpose extra space.
The company also sees scope for developing the concept. It is already supplying them as house extensions and has now done a classroom. “Build speed and green credentials make them ideal for schools and we’re getting a growing number of enquiries,” said Warburton.
Bespace, he added, is also expecting another market boost from its second outing at Grand Designs Live at the NEC in October. That looks like the perfect match for our cash-strapped times – all the modern-living, green allure of Grand Designs in a quick-build, economic cube.
