Inspired by the shape of a butterfly when it closes its wings, Valerie Schweitzer Architects’ ‘Butterfly Studio’ is a sculptural detached office full of cleverly placed windows that target views toward the yard rather than the main house for a sense of privacy and seclusion. Set in the backyard of a home in Westport, Connecticut, the design recently won an American Architecture Prize in the small architecture category.

Tiny houses of all kinds are practically ubiquitous at this point, so it’s kind of hard to stand out among them in terms of aesthetic choices. But ‘Butterfly House’ ditches convention altogether with its jagged floor plan and a sense of solidity balanced by lots and lots of glass.

The structure’s angled panels are alternately clad in recycled teak and stucco; narrow windows frame picturesque views of the landscaping and aid in cross-ventilation, bringing in breezes from the nearby Long Island Sound.

The coolest part is the faceted glass roof made of steel and thermally insulated glass, which floods the interior with enough daylight for the artist homeowner to work from sunrise to sunset without turning a light on. The 350-square-foot studio also boasts concrete floors with radiant heating to accommodate a wheeled chair, and has its own half-bath.

A backyard refuge to work, practice, paint or meditate separates you from the activities inside your home and gives you prime views of your backyard, garden or urban rooftop space. Adding a freestanding room can be as simple as having a fully-assembled prefab volume plunked right onto your property, and you can often customize them your ideal interior configurations, windows, built-in furniture and surfaces. Order one of these ready-to-go options, or use them as inspiration to build your own.

Prefabs by InOutside

A wood-clad cube with one corner entirely consisting of glass, the ‘Cooba’ by InOutside is a prefab modern room that’s ready to be dropped into your backyard as a studio, office or guest space. It starts at just over $15K (AUS) and when there’s easy access to the site, it can be delivered pre-assembled, requiring no concrete foundation or special equipment.

House Arc by Bellomo Architects

A modular system of bent steel tubes serves as the basis of ‘House Arc’, an unusually shaped rehab designed with environmental sensitivity in mind. It’s got a lattice screen roof providing a bit of shade and interest, rounded ends , translucent panels to let in light, and sliding glass doors. It’s made to be fully off-the-grid, can be flat-packed and shipped in a box that’s barely larger than that of a typical IKEA bed frame, and weighs 3000 pounds when complete.

Modular Library Studio by 3rd Space

Is this the coolest backyard room of all time? 3rd Space didn’t just add an office to the garden of a literature professor in Oxfordshire – they gave her an entire private library, with floor-to-ceiling windows and walls lined with books. The prefab system can really be used for anything, but the custom shelving really makes this unit special.

Green Roof Garden Studio by Eco Space

Vertical slats and optional green roofs add a whole lot of charm to Ecospace studios and their smaller models, including the medium-sized MidiPod. Based in the UK, Ecospace offers a sustainable and affordable alternative to a fixed addition. These studios are flexible and modular so they can be tailored, reconfigured or extended. The WorkPod is the smallest of all, built for a single user with a typical installation time of just 5 days.

The LoftCube

No backyard to work with? How about a roof? The Loft Cube functions like a ready-to-go rooftop extension and ranges in size from a modest 365 square foot volume, which requires no building permits in its home nation of Belgium, to a volume that’s plenty large enough to live in at over 900 square feet. You can even stack the cubes on top of each other to create a larger dwelling.

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Prefab Office Pods 14 Studios Workspaces Made For Your Backyard

Whether you’re an artist looking to work in the most inspiring environment possible or just want to break beyond the cubicle, these mobile and pop-up offices offer adaptability, portability and access to optimal daylight levels.

Volkswagen T6 Mobile Office

Volkswagen’s bizarre-looking T6 is a mobile office in the most literal sense – it’s a van and workspace in one. The idea is that you wouldn’t have to miss a moment of work time while commuting, but this design – which features a meeting area as well as a personal cubicle – might be even better suited to parking somewhere pretty and enjoying the view out of those big round windows.

Observatory Modern Artist Residence

These mobile ‘observatory’ studios are perfect for creative work with their massive glazed walls opening up to whatever landscape is deemed desirable for the work at hand. Designed by four graduate students from the English design firm Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, these two small timber structures sit on prefabricated swiveling bases so they can be moved even once they’re transported via flat-bed truck to their destination.

SPACE Shipping Container Office

The SPACE shipping container office by Metalab is made up of a reclaimed shipping container with a fold-out solar rack system. It’s designed for rapid deployment so it could function as an emergency relief office, but also as a park ranger’s station or an everyday work space in areas where access to the power grid isn’t available.

Mobile All-in-One Office Unit

This office-within-an-office makes it easy to maintain a comfortable, modern, minimalist workspace no matter where your office might be physically located -even if it’s a dreary warehouse. THe Paco all-in-one unit by Jo Nagasaka + Schemata Architecture Office is a white cube with a roof that opens up to allow interaction with the world outside, but offers privacy when closed. The interior is fitted with a hammock, a table and even a bathroom.

Comic Book Style Pop-Up Office

This fun pop-up office turns a display window into a creative comic-book inspired workspace, showcasing local artists in London to entertain passersby. Employees of the Weiden + Kennedy ad agency took turns working in the window at the company’s headquarters. Most of the office is made of paper and cardboard in stark black and white, and some elements are kinetic, like a phone that rocks as if it’s ringing and a clock that runs backwards.

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Pop Up Office 14 Modern Mobile Studios For Creatives

Designed as an extension to a home, this mobile live/work pod eschews conventional mobile home aesthetics in favor of something decidedly more eccentric. ‘Blob VB3’ is an oblong white living space that looks like a gigantic egg when it’s all closed up, but the sides open to reveal a gridded interior for storing small items, working and even sleeping.

Architecture firm dmvA came up with the prototype in response to strict building codes in the client’s city. It contains lots of open niches for storage, multipurpose platforms, lighting, a kitchen and a bathroom. When the airplane-like ‘nose’ is open, it functions as a roof for a small indoor/outdoor space.

Primarily made of polyester, the Blob VB3 is easy to transport, aerodynamic and versatile. It could be used as a guest room, office, pool house or garden house. A circular skylight lets light into the bright white interior.

While the open shelves don’t exactly make it ideal for pulling behind a truck like an Airstream, it’s an interesting way to add a little extra space to an existing building without having to deal with local building regulations.

Why settle for a cramped corner of a noisy house when your home office could be a separate unit tucked into the greenery of your backyard? Detached office modules, art studios, recording studios and other work spaces help keep the line between work and home life sharply delineated, but cut your commute down to mere steps. Modern and often modular, these 14 compact office designs fit into virtually any outdoor space, and they’re so good-looking, they practically function as yard art.

WorkPod by Ecospace

(image via: ecospacestudios)

Sleek and minimalist, the WorkPod by Ecospace architecture studio is a compact detached office with optional integrated work areas and storage systems. You can even configure your own customized pod in one of five different sizes, and choose the color of the exterior.

Blob VB3 by dmvA

(image via: dmva architecten)

From the outside, it looks like a dinosaur egg: it’s simply a white blob. But open that discreet door on the side and you’ll find an ultramodern studio space with lots of built-in niches for storage. It features a skylight and a front hatch that opens to let in air and additional sunlight. The appropriately named Blob V3 functions as a mobile guest house, portable backyard office or secondary library space.

Tetra Shed by Innovation Imperative

(images via: archdaily)

Looking like an architectural interpretation of Darth Vader’s helmet, the Tetra Shed is a geometric volume with flaps that open to provide a door and windows. A single unit is large enough to function as an office or guest room, and multiple units can be connected. The Tetra Shed is made of engineered timber, matte black rubber and birch faced plywood.

Banyan Treehouse by RPA

(images via: archdaily)

This luxurious modern studio and guest house sits above a live tree trunk in Nichols Canyon, Los Angeles, and pays tribute to the treehouse aesthetic with three stylized modern pillars that evoke natural branches. Rockefeller Partners Architects designed the detached unit for the eastern-facing ridge location, topping it off with an evocative butterfly-shaped roofline.

Sett Studio

(images via: settstudio.com)

The prefabricated Sett Studio can easily be unloaded from a truck and slid right into place in your backyard. With layouts ranging between 97 to 192 square feet, the Sett Studio is perfect for a fairly small office, art studio, yoga space or guest room that won’t require a building permit in most areas. It’s made of SIP (Structural Insulated Panel) technology, which is energy-efficient and reduces manufacturing waste.

Archipod

(image via: archipod.co.uk)

The perfectly round, shingle-covered Archipod is certainly an unusual structure to see in someone’s backyard. Designed to be garden decor as much as a functioning studio or workspace, the Archipod is a 9-foot-diameter sphere that is shipped in segments so it can easily be carried, piece by piece, through a house. Inside is a semi-circular desk, a skylight and a porthole-like round glass window.

Office Pod by Manuel Villa

(images via: cubeme.com)

Architects Manuel Villa and Alberto Gonzalez designed this office pod for a backyard in Bogota, Colombia. The polyhedron-shaped structure has a pine wood interior, a black exterior with a honeycomb pattern and a large teak deck. A wall of windows and a bubble-shaped skylight bring in lots of natural light.

Sustainsia Cocoon

(images via: sustainsia.com)

Looking somewhat like the bottom end of a guitar, the Sustainsia Cocoon is a curvy detached studio space with built-in furniture that requires users to bring in nothing more than a chair and personal items. A bench can pull out into a futon bed, and overhead lift-open cabinets have doors that continue into the curving contour of the ceiling. The table pulls down like a Murphy bed, saving space when not in use.

Generation Design Studio

(image via: generation design studio)

Generation Design Studio created this ‘tiny house’ for a backyard in Portland, Oregon. Built from an old greenhouse foundation, the 198-square-foot structure is made from mostly recycled glass and lumber, and has custom-built cedar doors and windows.

OfficePOD

(images via: officepod.co.uk)

Another totally transportable, self-contained backyard working space is the OfficePod. The modular design makes it easy to move and assemble, and a rolling wooden facade enables it to be opened to the outdoors. A top-quality locking system ensures that valuables inside are protected. Built and delivered, the whole OfficePod comes out to about $24,000. Features include an integrated desk, built-in storage, LED lighting and window blinds.

Log Cabin Recording Studio by Piet Hein Eek

(image via: pietheineek.nl)

It’s anything but a traditional log cabin. In fact, when the window awnings are down, Piet Hein Eek’s recording studio looks like nothing more than a stack of logs. Cleverly camouflaged, the studio looks incredibly rustic from the outside but features a bright white interior.

Prefab Origin Design Studio

(images via: blu homes)

Prefab manufacturer Blu Homes offers a range of detached office/studios called The Origin Series, available in three sizes ranging from 24 to 48 feet long. Simple rectangular structures with lots of windows, the Origin structures come in a choice of floor plans that include mother-in-law apartments, media rooms, artist studios and even entire two-bedroom homes.

Garden Studio by in.it.studios

(images via: design milk)

The Garden Office Studio by in.it.studio is a backyard office with all of the comforts of home, including insulation, double-glazed windows and an optional bathroom. With enough room inside for two people to work, the studio boasts floor-to-ceiling glass that undoubtedly inspires a whole lot of nature gazing. It’s built from sustainably sourced timber using environmentally friendly construction methods and there’s no PVC anywhere on the structure, including in the rain gutter.

Modular Home Office by Stephen Meir

(images via: coroflot)

This modular ‘office shed’ by designer Stephen Meir takes just “one day, two people, three tools” to put together. The office arrives in what look like slices of the whole, which snap together in any configuration you like, in either a straight or curving line depending on how you align them. A rubber seal between each component creates a watertight seal.