The Gardenrobe Is a Beautiful Tiny With Surprising Functionality, Including a Chicken Coop

The Gardenrobe is different from the tiny houses that we usually cover, but at the same time, it’s also an organic development on those. It’s actually a garden shed slash garden retreat slash call-it-whatever-you-want, inspired by the tiny house movement in its layout, build, and versatility. The Gardenrobe is a tiny house’s baby with an ADU (accessory dwelling unit), with a very striking aesthetic that aims to get your attention.

Presented by international design studio Pin-Up Houses in the summer of 2022, the Gardenrobe gets its name from the fact that it’s a hybrid between a cabinet and a garden hut, with a relaxation area. A more accurate description would call it a sum of a bunch of other things as well, including a tool shed, dry storage, and water collection system – and yes, it also has a chicken coop.

Designed and built by Joshua Woodsman, who also did the Gaia self-sufficient container home and the experimental France tiny house we covered in separate stories, the Gardenrobe is also an experiment into sustainable, self-sufficient tiny dwelling. One unit has been built and put to the test, so its viability is not just theoretical.

Pin-Up Houses offers plans for it for purchase if you’re feeling inspired by the photos, the video, and this text. The estimated total cost of the build is of $8,700, which presumably doesn’t include the work you’d be doing yourself.

The structure is made of black laminated plywood and construction timber, and is anchored on the ground by means of large screws. Putting it together is a matter of a couple of hours with a two-person team, which means you could also take it apart just as easily, for relocation. Unlike a proper tiny house, though, the Gardenrobe doesn’t have wheels, so moving it from location to location would prove a much more taxing, sweaty job.

Seeing how it’s not meant as a residence, not even a temporary one, but as a garden fixture instead, that part shouldn’t be too much of a bother. The Gardenrobe was designed as the next evolution stage of a tiny dwelling, so it takes inspiration from the versatility of a tiny to deliver surprising functionality. In a very compact footprint, it packs a range of very surprising features, from the aforementioned chicken coop to solar panels, storage and a pigeon loft.

The Gardenrobe is 20 feet (6 meters) long by 4 feet (1.2 meters) wide. It’s small and comparatively narrower than a proper tiny house, but it can provide ample functionality by means of an ingenious system of storage solutions. For instance, it offers storage for your skiing gear, and dry storage for at least three bicycles, of the non-electric type. It can also house regular gardening equipment, which makes sense, given its location in your personal garden, right?

There’s a centrally-located “relaxation area,” which is basically a small area with seating, which can prove ideal to grab a quick meal, catch your breath in between garden chores, or wait as your devices recharge. We assume that this is the only reason why there’s a solar panel on the roof, with a small battery. Additional storage is available throughout, of varying sizes, with the different modules easily secured in place with bolts.

A large IBC container at one end is for rainwater collection, while the other end houses the chicken coop. The pigeon loft on the lightweight fiberglass roof also serves as a vertical counterbalance to the entire structure. Given the kind of stuff you’d be storing inside, the last thing you want is for the thing to topple over at the slightest gust of wind.

Because of the very compact footprint they have to work with, tiny houses are always, without fail, surprisingly creative in the way they employ every inch of space to create a home. This shed takes this kind of creativity and versatility, and puts it to good use in your back garden.

“Gardenrobe proves that even such a common and practical structure as a shed can be creatively designed and become an architectural landmark in your garden,” Pin-Up Houses says. We could argue on that last part and how the comparison to an architectural landmark is a bit of a stretch, but it still wouldn’t take anything from its merits: this multi-functional tiny structure is very pretty. Surprisingly pretty, just like it’s surprisingly functional. It could also be described as surprisingly costly, but that’s something each of us should decide on their own.