The work-from-home trend of recent years has brought with it a slew of quickly assembled, elegantly modernist garden offices with Wi-Fi capability. But while we appreciate the extra space, some designers say we crave the analog opposite: a poetic, handcrafted oasis cobbled together from reclaimed materials and a few worn-out pieces of furniture.

This is less a place for a hyper-productive workday and more a place to escape to. To enjoy the garden, to listen to the tapping of the branches and the patter of the rain. To have, as Andrew Marvell put it in the 17th century before Gmail, “a green thought in a green shade.”

At least, that’s what architect Ben Stuart-Smith had in mind for his shed, one of the more unusual highlights of this year’s Chelsea Flower Show. It was built from scratch with joiner Fenton Scott-Fielder. The mix of natural and antique details – pale wood surfaces and shingled roof, copper nails and porcelain light switches – captured visitors’ imaginations and evoked rural calm. (“Who wouldn’t want to hang out here?” said one, sniffing the tree scents.)

Stuart-Smith’s retreat, on display in his father Tom’s garden installation, will be relocated to a new garden for the cancer charity Maggie’s Centre at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. The idea began with a book about Ballenberg, a Swiss open-air museum of traditional, vernacular architecture. “In Switzerland there is a strong tradition of non-architects building small dwellings out of stone and wood,” says Stuart-Smith. “They have a simplicity and directness that is sometimes missing in modern design, which is all about straight lines – and MDF.”

“We made ours from a beech tree that had fallen in my aunt’s garden,” he says. “Imperfection and change are built into the design. I think that’s what people responded to. It feels very human.”

Interior designer Tamsin Saunders of Home & Found agrees. She has created artist studios for her secluded London retreat. “I’m drawn to personal spaces where you can see the maker’s mark. Simple buildings built for pleasure as well as work,” she says, also pointing to the influence of 20th-century designers Wharton Esherick and Russel Wright. “They built themselves houses that were essentially cabins. Places where they could escape from everyday life and contemplate nature without the distractions of the modern world.”

A path winds through a tangle of fennel and poppies to Saunders’ “nurturing nest,” built around an ancient chestnut tree whose roofline is hidden beneath tangled vines and roses. “I wanted it to feel like it had always been there, like it had grown out of the garden,” says Saunders, who uses her hut for reading, painting and writing.

Everything here is antique or reclaimed: her response to the “creativity of modern homes,” she says. The carved door is from a Victorian ornament; a pair of hand-painted chairs once belonged to the sculptor Elisabeth Frink. Saunders’ daughter, the artist Freya, painted the delicate patterns on the walls and window frames. “It smells soothingly of oil paint, cork and wood… It’s a love letter to nature and the beauty of handmade things.”

In Dorset, illustrator Fee Greening’s shepherd’s hut is the teenage bedroom she never had. “This is the first time I’ve had my own room where I can immerse myself in my artistic universe,” says Greening, whose repertoire of Gothic-inspired pen and ink drawings includes wallpaper, fabrics and books.

She bought her hideaway from a novice builder on eBay to escape the “drumbeat” of her musician husband in their thatched cottage. It serves as her retreat – and her studio. “Here I am in muddy boots, covered in jam toast crumbs, sprucing up work to glamorous clients. I like that contrast.”

The setting in a gloomy valley cleft by a meandering river suits her mystical inclinations: “We are on a ley line and behind us lies an ancient burial mound. The ridge path is a direct line that leads to Stonehenge.”

She began by painting the walls moss green and the windows gallery red. “Then the skies opened – and it looked like a crime scene.” Local cottage specialist Plankbridge stepped in to repair the damaged roof and install the electrics. Greening designed the medieval arch that spans the daybed lined with PJ Harvey posters and her intricate illustrations. Her favourite childhood toy, the spooky witch doll Baba Yaga, sits on the shelf next to the carved desk she bought as an art student and lugged between rental apartments. “Baba Yaga is a witch in Slavic folklore who lived in an enchanted cottage. It feels fitting.”

Greening joins an illustrious tradition of cabin dwellers. In the 18th century, literary-minded landowners built rustic cabins for the hermits who lived there. Charles Dickens had a Swiss chalet. Mark Twain’s chalet was octagonal. An entire book – Dylan Thomas and the Writing Shed by Martin Willitts Jr. – is dedicated to the poet’s hut. Virginia Woolf’s writing hut in Monk’s House in East Sussex stood under a chestnut tree and had brick seating overlooking the bowls on the lawn.

Designer Octavia Dickinson’s ideal is her parents’ “cottage” in Gloucestershire. More of a madhouse than a shed, it stands on a hill overlooking the valley. The design is based on an 18th-century hermitage: a pointed thatched roof, arched windows and a gnarled wooden facade. “This is where I became interested in the relationship between buildings and landscape. Although it’s very simple, it’s like a sculpture rooted in the environment,” says Dickinson.

Her father, old master dealer Simon Dickinson, originally built it with the family’s late gardener as an annex for his more esoteric (and unpopular) finds – like fossilised elephant dung. Over time, it became the family’s outdoor dining room. Telephones are left at the back door and food is transported up the hill in a rickety golf cart. There’s a stone fireplace and a drinks table that once belonged to Sir Walter Scott. On summer evenings, the rustic doors are flung open. “This is about eccentricity – not technology; and about feeling somewhere far away.”

A shed should be a surprise, like stumbling upon a cabin in the woods

A shed should be a surprise, like stumbling upon a cabin in the woods, says landscape gardener Henrietta Courtauld. Her perennial-surrounded study in west London is just “15 steps” from her back door. But it feels like a discovery. It’s hidden behind a lush mass of mint, figs and angelica that spills over the garden path; in summer, a cloud of white roses obscures the corrugated iron roof.

Courtauld is co-founder, with Bridget Elworthy, of The Land Gardeners, which promotes a natural, pesticide-free approach to gardening. She commissioned Maria Speake of refurbishment specialist Retrouvius to design her hut. The desk is made from an old laboratory worktop; the mullioned windows are another find. Light filters through gossamer fern-printed curtains from Soane Britain. There’s a daybed for furtive naps, with storage space underneath for sketches and drafts.

“I used to have my study in the house. When the children came home, they would throw their school work on my desk,” she says. “Even though our garden is small, it’s wonderful to have a separate room. I feel like I’m in the middle of nature.”

Interior designer Susanna Thomas agrees. As the wife of a south London vicar, she was limited in her part-church-owned home. There were no rules for the barn. Shielded by flowers and foliage and within earshot of a fountain, the DIY retreat features low brass tables, antique mirrors and a long L-shaped sofa made of rough-sawn wood and piled with cushions. Stained-glass windows splash drops of paint onto the reclaimed brick floor; antique fabric is stretched across the ceiling like a ship’s sail. The tin roof is from her sister’s farm. Here, she can do whatever she wants.

It appeals to her lyrical inclinations. “This is where the days begin and end,” she says. “This is where you are when the grass is wet and the household is asleep… The rain on the roof reminds me of my childhood.”

In Cumbria, automotive engineer and carpenter George Fisher is restoring a shepherd’s hut for a client. The Victorian outbuilding, which still has the maker’s mark stamped on its axles, served as the client’s childhood den “for imaginary worlds” but later fell into disrepair at the bottom of her parents’ garden. Now Fisher is transforming it into a modern retreat.

The cabin was delivered to its new location in hundreds of pieces on a trailer. Rebuilding it involves straightening 19th-century nails and restoring the battered cast-iron stove. “It would have been cheaper and easier to buy a glass case,” Fisher says. “But where’s the poetry in that?”

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