Tunbridge Wells design-and-build firm Box Clad tells us about its enviro-conscious mod pods

From a home office to a luxurious indoor cinema, we all want to add something to our homes, but, with bricks and mortar space always seemingly at a premium, people are turning to their outdoor spaces to get creative.

But while the creators of ‘garden rooms’ are nationally plentiful, Tunbridge Wells’s Box Clad (@box_clad) has set about devising a unique, design-led system to create bespoke pods with an eye on details and environmental impact.

Founded in 2017, Box Clad was started by art director and designer Mark Etherington and building industry pro Sean Atkins - not a bad combination to begin with.

A chat during a barbecue and inspired by Mark’s recently-clad garden shed, the pair set about making an interesting idea into a business that is now creating pods nationally and internationally.

“I started sort of scribbling down on paper kind of some of the looks and feels,” says Mark. “We never wanted to do the same as everyone else. We wanted to create something that we would have in our gardens.

“We built in a traditional way at the start, with stud walls and 4x2 timbers, really setting ourselves as every one being bespoke. Our first-ever one was actually a cheese-wedge shape.”

But this initial concept moved forward quickly when starting a partnership with west Kent manufacturer All CNC (Computer Numerical Controlled).

“We were kind of sitting around going ‘Surely there’s a better way of doing this’,” says Mark. “So we researched and found All CNC, which is essentially how all of our elements are cut. Essentially, it’s a big flatbed machine that has an arm on top and it goes around and cuts everything out of a big sheet of material.”

It was at this point that Box Clad moved from a side project to the main event and the business was moved from the home office into Space2Make - a repurposed industrial unit on the outskirts of Tunbridge Wells that houses a number of creatives, including All CNC.

“That was a bit of a revelation for us, walking into this space,” says Mark. “And in there you had everything from joiners to jewellery-makers, artists and picture-framers. We had a big conversation and decided to move our kind of way of producing and tie up with these guys and take everything on board ourselves. So, now, we literally create everything under one roof.”

“We never wanted to do the same as everyone else. We wanted to create something that we would have in our gardens”

— Box Clad

That includes the ‘bricks’, or as the team calls them ‘cassettes’. And this new modular approach means that design-and-build can be done in a far quicker time scale while remaining bespoke to the customer.

“It’s really adaptable in terms of all these little modules that it’s made from,” explains Mark. “So you’re not set to a rigid plan as such. And there’s no extra cost for choosing where you want to put your windows and doors. You can have your sockets up high for a TV, you can have five together for a desk, you can have whatever you want.

“This is kind of one of the beauties of how we build - everything is cut off-site. So the internal walls, for example, the birch ply that we use, is all cut to size and pre-drilled, where the screws will go. All the sockets are predrilled out. We can go and put in one of these pods in three to four days. And everything’s agreed prior to that.”

There are extra costs for more glazing and the Black Edition pods are slightly pricier than the regular colour, but with the foundations and electric all included in the initial price the idea is to speed up lead times into as little as six weeks to prepare.

ENVIRONMENTALLY CONSCIOUS

The other benefit of working with a CNC is that it means there is very little waste material.

“Our production method means that everything is done to the millimetre,” says Mark. “The construction is nearly perfect, or as perfect as timber could be. Which means that they perform better at installation. Because it is all machine-cut, there are no human discrepancies that you get with the traditional style of building no matter how careful you are.

“Everything’s mapped out on big sheets and all the elements are put out in a random way to maximise the material being used. So there’s barely any waste.”

Box Clad also uses ground screws for the foundations of the pods, avoiding the use of concrete, and sources sustainable materials. It has also collaborated with green leader C Free Ltd, which works out businesses’ carbon footprints and offsets it.

“With C Free we plant trees for every pod that we build, varying the amount of trees that we plant, depending on the size of the pod,” says Mark. “And this has been done from day one. We’ve just reached quite a milestone of 3,500 trees that we’ve planted.

“On the flip side, we don’t plant them in this country. They’re planted in Madagascar, which actually has a bigger impact on the environment because of all the deforestation there and also it guarantees local employment through this company.”

The off-cuts and spare materials that do crop up have also given rise to Box Clad’s new baby, Beatbox, which involves modular box shelving and furniture pieces.

“What we wanted at the start was to create a brand that people buy into, not just a garden room kind of company,” says Mark. “And we’re always kind of looking for ways to help people internally, originally in the pods. But also anything that we created on top of the pods we wanted to kind of reflect how we built the pods as such. So with the Beatboxes, the way it’s all cut and joined and things like that very much reflect Box Clad.”

While the initial prototypes have been used as storage and display for books, magazines and vinyl, the flexibility of the products is something that Mark is looking to develop.

“You can add, for example, metal legs underneath it, so it becomes more of a side table. You could put a cushion on top as well. Or stack them the other way and it becomes almost like a bench seat. We’ll be adding these other elements to the boxes to make them more of a furniture item rather than a storage item.”

Plans are already afoot to give some of the boxes to artists to see what they come up with to inspire others, so watch out for the #mybeatbox on sister page @beatboxbyboxclad.

INFO: boxclad.co.uk