Member Article

Eco Pod home office space demand for SMEs

At Adventure In Architectureº, our clients are increasingly asking for designs and recommendations for the property sector’s growing trend: Eco Pods. Eco pods are constructed with the environment in mind and offer clever eco-friendly spaces in the garden or outside space for a variety of uses including garden office, (isolated!) space for the in-laws, the man cave, accommodation to rent out, festival beds, treehouses and mobile gyms. If you have a passion or business and a small space we can accommodate you.

Our love of mobile structures came initially from designing emergency shelters for medical clinics in Africa and then for survival purposes at the South Pole. Back in London the surge in popularity of the eco pod is partly driven by Air BnB. According to DMR, there are over 500,000 Air BnB stays per night worldwide and 2.3million listings*.

Eco pods allow home owners to rent accommodation space and host guests without the invasion of privacy of total strangers staying in their home. This nice little money earner and satisfaction of running the hospitality project will quickly outweigh the initial build costs. Air BnB travellers also seem to prefer this option, as it means they don’t feel they are intruding on the homeowner’s personal space and it gives the renter their own peace and privacy too and often a unique accommodation space.

Another key use for eco pods is for home offices. With the rise of SMEs and people being self-employed, the demand for at home offices is at an all-time high. The FSB reports that small business accounted for 99.3% of all private sector businesses at the start of 2016 and total employment in SMEs was 15.7million or 60% of all private sector employment in the UK**.

But working from home can have psychological disadvantages that an eco pod can overcome. Having an office in the home takes up valuable living space but it also blurs the line between work and home life balance. An office in the house means the self-employed can get easily distracted by household interruptions or in contrast, it can result in the worker never switching off and being too easily drawn to their computer and paperwork at unsocial and unhealthy waking hours. A garden eco pod for office-use combats this by creating a clear line – and physical barrier – between the home and work life.

We have also had clients ask for eco pods for entertaining use and to be used for games rooms by their children, or as one TV presenter client requested… ‘the man cave’. Whether for small or big children alike it provides independence and keeps the noise – and mess – separate to the main house. The lifestyle opportunities an eco pod offers are endless but it also creates noticeable financial benefits too by increasing the value of your property or development by creating more square foot space without huge building costs. Also, you can overcome any known planning permission issues if the eco pod is a temporary structure. Therefore, if you want extra space at home or want to increase the value of your property, an eco pod is a really good solution for this and this is why it remains a hot trend. If access seems a problem in your small garden then fear not, there is a crane for the job.

For the commercial client there are equal rewards, boutique fitness company 1Rebel recently requested a spinning class on a bus and a festival brand is exploring accommodation in lorries.

The common denominator with all these structures is providing clever space saving designs and off grid services. We address these issues by looking at the marine industry providing Wi-Fi, toilets, rain water harvesting, solar generated electricity and battery power all from existing marine brands designed for the rigors of sea.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by JON BESWICK .