Rethinking the Garden Shed: Exciting Ideas for Eco-Friendly Garden Buildings

A garden shed can be far more than just a dingy, damp place where a few garden tools and plant pots are stored. 

Garden sheds and other eco-friendly garden buildings can push the envelope of sustainable design. And they can show just how much can be achieved when architecture and garden design come together with interesting, practical, and beautiful solutions for our gardens. 

Green Roof Garden Sheds

When we place larger or multiple garden sheds in our gardens, we are losing space that could otherwise be used to grow plants, maximizing photosynthesis and sequestering carbon. 

But when we integrate green roofs into our designs, we can have the best of both worlds, adding to our covered amenity space without reducing our plantable areas. 

There are a number of different green roof solutions that are suited to different types of roofs, different positions, and different areas or climate zones. If you are thinking about creating a garden shed or other garden building with a green roof where you live, then it is important to understand the site and to choose accordingly. 

Selecting native species rather than a generic "green roof" mix is generally a good idea since local plants are likely to be ideally suited to the local growing conditions. 

I recently worked on a garden design for a client, which included a green roof of drought-tolerant native wildflowers on a bike shed and bin-storage area. Set in a front garden largely sown with perennial meadow plants, it demonstrated how man-made structures don't have to stand out like a sore thumb from the environment they sit in. 

Turf Roof, Earth-Sheltered Garden Buildings

Sometimes, it might be possible to go one stage further, and rather than simply placing a green roof on a garden shed or other garden building, we might design buildings that form part of the garden landscaping and which are at least partially earth-sheltered. 

Partly subterranean, earth-sheltered structures can be an interesting option, especially on sloping sites but in other gardens too. In such cases, the garden can continue over the structure, since there can be a turf roof on top that, in some instances, can be walked upon and used just like other parts of the garden. 

These types of garden buildings can be your very own hobbit houses, or they can have a modern, sleek, and contemporary feel. 

An earth-sheltered structure of some kind with a turf roof that could make a perfect picnic spot likely won't be the cheapest option. But it might be more affordable than you think, especially if you use reclaimed materials and are perhaps prepared to do some of the work yourself. 

In a recent design, a back garden featured a summerhouse in a corner, with a slope leading onto its native turf roof to allow access up to the higher area and a slide for kids curving back down from it to lower areas of the garden. 

Cob, Adobe, or Straw Bale Garden Buildings

There are, of course, plenty of other ways to construct buildings that feel almost like an organic addition to your garden and not some foreign object that has just been plonked into place. A natural and organic feel is naturally easier to achieve when you choose to build a sustainable garden building with natural materials. 

Building the walls of a garden shed or garden building from cob, adobe, or straw bales, to name a few eco-friendly and sustainable examples, can give you a building that is unique and truly functional and fit for purpose. 

Of course, garden sheds cannot only be made from natural materials. They can also be constructed from reclaimed timber and a range of other reclaimed materials. 

But it can often be fun to choose more malleable, natural materials and to think outside of the box—literally—when it comes to garden building design. 

Round or curving shapes can help your garden shed stand out from the crowd and blend much more appealingly into the natural and semi-natural surroundings of your garden. And materials like cob, adobe, or straw bales with a natural render can give you that flexibility when it comes to shape and design. 

Cohesive Thinking in Garden and Shed Design

Whatever materials you choose to construct a garden shed or other garden building, you should make sure that you think about that structure holistically in the context of the garden as a whole. 

Not only should you think very carefully about where a new garden structure is placed, and the impact that will have on the space and plants around it. You should also think about what the building can offer for you and your garden through integrated design. 

For example, you might collect rainwater from the structure, incorporate living walls or other vertical gardening options on its sides, and/or provide habitat for wildlife as built-in design features.

These are just a few examples of how outdoor structures can work with your garden instead of against it.