In the present era of remote and hybrid working, where the confines of four walls may challenge the separation of professional and recreational Iife, solutions in home office design continue to evolve, helping to differentiate kitchen from meeting room. The construction of bespoke, modular garden rooms that are built-to-last have become more feasible with Okopod, making construction quicker, easier and ecologically viable with the use of sustainably sourced building materials such as Kebony wood. 
Designer Mattias Brietholz moved into his house in Croydon, London, in November 2022. Reflecting on their life balance in recent years, Mattias comments: “Both my partner and I found the line between working at the office and working at home fairly blurry, so the idea of having a space separate from our house where we can focus solely on projects has been a dream for a long time”. 

Turning concept into reality, the couple considered a range of different companies until they came across Okopod. ‘Okopod stood out as the most active creator on social media with strong and classic designs’. Okopod, founded in 2019, designs, manufactures and installs timber framed garden rooms, extensions, garages and new builds across the UK. Its unique approach to the way it manufactures in its facility in Cambridge minimises customer disruption. 

Okopod values the environment in everything it does, providing consumers with a range of eco-friendly timber products to complete their bespoke units, ensuring both durability and sustainability. For the exterior of his unit, Mattias selected Kebony cladding for its environmental friendliness and longevity, admitting, “before this project I didn’t know much about Kebony; upon reading more it wasn’t just a stunning material but sustainable and durable, also being Scandinavian, the fact that the wood is from the region also resonated with me”.

Developed in Norway, Kebony is the leading global producer of dually modified™ wood transforming sustainable softwoods into enhanced wood boasting comparable, and in some cases superior, qualities to tropical hardwoods that are both sustainable and durable. The bio-based dual modification™ process permanently transforms the wood cell walls by forming locked-in polymers, increasing the dimensional stability, resistance, and hardness of the wood, and guaranteeing both a long life and a high level of safety. Alongside its minimal environmental impact and rich brown aesthetic, the Kebony facade requires no maintenance, making it the ideal long-term choice of material for Mattias’ Okopod.