The Hobbit Studio

We commenced building Bryon’s studio in March 2020 at the beginning of lockdown. The building is octagonal of course, our favourite shape for buildings. It is erected on a concrete slab, with block walls the are filled with concrete and reinforced with steel rebar. We had a working bee to pour the slab and were helped by four good friends, thanks to Rick, Rachel, Peter and Karen. It took sixty mixes to complete and was done in four hours, that’s a lot of shoveling! The bricklaying was a tedious job and took us a day to lay each course by the time we’d back filled it with concrete and made the beams to go over the openings.

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We had seen some pretty cool turf roofs at Findhorn in Scotland which inspired us to do the same for this project. We constructed a strong timber frame for the roof as it had to support the weight of the soil and plantings. Sup-Ply down in Devonport sourced some 21mm Structural Ply for us at a very competitive price, they have a great range of building products and more. We coated the ply with a black bituminous paint as an extra precaution against moisture. We used strong F17 beams as the potting mix we finally added weighed 1.3 tonnes. We sought advice about the roof design from our friend Mervyn Jones who is an engineer, as I didn’t want to go out and find Bryon under all that potting mix.

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Once we had laid the structural ply, the next layer was a sheet of heavy duty builder’s film, this was followed by a layer of geo-textile, then the drainage layer, another layer of geo-textile and finally the potting mix. The drainage layer is especially made for turf roofs and is made up of a 20mm thick waffle which allows rain to pass through the soil, into the drainage layer and then down into the guttering.

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We have used some bottles to add highlights to the walls, and painted out the inside with a bright white paint as we wanted to maximise the light for Bryon when he is painting. Of course we have been so busy for the past 12 months he’s hardly had any time to paint. The building nestles nicely in the garden and is approached by a tunnel of wisteria from the conservatory. Which of course is bare in winter, lush green in summer and golden during the autumn

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At the end of the tunnel is the door, we originally wanted a round door but that didn’t work out due to the shape of the walls so we built oval doors. We made them from hardwood flooring and a friend found some funky handles for us at an auction and re-fashioned them to suit. The full effect won’t be seen til the rendering is completed. We used lightweight hebel block that we could cut with a saw to help make the oval shape.

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We have planted the roof with a red succulent called Chocolate Blob but have been disappointed with it’s performance, mostly because of the difficulty of watering the roof. To overcome this we have purchased a watering system which, once installed, we can just turn on the tap to water which should finally give us the shiny red “living” roof that we envisaged. The final process is the rendering, which will be done with acrylic render, the same as the bottle walls in the house for those of you that have visited before.

This project has been on hold for quite a few months as we moved on to other more pressing jobs. But more about that in my next post.

I won’t say too much about this process but watch out for more photos here as it evolves. Our plan is to have it at least partially complete before the Bay of Fires Art Trail. We are open again this year on Saturday June 12, Sunday June 13, and Monday June 14 from 10.00am to 4.00pm so drop in and see what we have been up to.