In The Shape of Shelter I covered the structural logic behind the Thiosphere — the truncated icosahedron, the double shell, the flat panels from hardware store materials. That post was about the platform. This one is about what happens when you fill it with a desk and close the door.
The Ergosphere is a workspace. But the geometry makes it a workspace that solves problems no rectangular room can.
The Acoustics of Shape
Deep work requires quiet. Not silence — quiet. The absence of intrusive sound. A conversation in the next room. A television downstairs. A lawnmower across the street. These are the sounds that break concentration, and conventional home offices do almost nothing to stop them.
The reason is structural. A typical interior wall is a single layer of drywall on each side of a stud frame. Sound vibrates one sheet of drywall, transmits through the studs, and vibrates the other sheet. The wall is a drum — it conducts sound rather than blocking it.
The Ergosphere double shell solves this the same way recording studios do: two independent structures with an air gap between them.
The outer shell receives exterior sound — wind, traffic, neighbors. It vibrates. That vibration has to cross the air gap to reach the inner shell. Air is a poor conductor of structured vibration. By the time the sound energy crosses the gap, most of it has been absorbed or dispersed.
The inner shell receives interior sound — your voice on a call, music from your speakers. It vibrates. That vibration has to cross the same gap in reverse before it reaches the outside. Your neighbors do not hear your conference calls. Your family does not hear your music.
The result is acoustic isolation comparable to a purpose-built sound booth, achieved not through expensive acoustic treatment but through the structural geometry that was already there for thermal reasons. The double shell insulates heat and insulates sound for the same physical reasons — two independent barriers with a gap between them attenuate transmission.
Light Without Compromise
Home offices have a light problem. If you face the window, glare washes out your screen. If you face away, you sit in your own shadow. If the window is to one side, half your desk is bright and half is dark.
These problems exist because windows in rectangular rooms are vertical surfaces on one wall. The light comes from one direction at one height.
The Ergosphere panel system lets you place window panels at different positions and angles around the structure. Floor-to-ceiling glazing on two adjacent faces provides wrap-around natural light that enters the workspace from multiple angles and heights. The light is diffuse rather than directional. No single surface is in harsh glare because no single surface is perpendicular to the light source for more than a fraction of the day.
The upper hexagonal panels can include skylights — angled glass panels that admit overhead light without the direct solar gain that overheats a room. North-facing skylights (in the northern hemisphere) provide the most consistent, diffuse natural light available, which is why artist studios have traditionally used north-facing windows.
And because every panel is swappable, you can adjust. Too much afternoon glare from the west-facing panel? Swap it for an insulated panel with a smaller window opening. Not enough light on your desk in winter? Swap a solid panel for glazing on the southeast face. The workspace adapts to your experience of working in it.
Climate in a Small Volume
The Ergosphere encloses roughly 200 cubic feet of usable workspace. That is small by room standards, but it is exactly the right size for a single-occupant office.
Small volume with good insulation means fast, efficient climate control. A small space heater draws 500-1000 watts and maintains comfortable temperature through a cold winter night. A mini-split heat pump — the smallest available — is overkill for this volume but provides precise temperature control year-round for a fraction of the energy cost of heating a full room in your house.
The double shell provides R-20 insulation on all non-glazed surfaces. That thermal envelope means you are heating or cooling 200 cubic feet, not fighting against heat loss through thin walls and single-pane windows. The energy cost of maintaining 20°C inside when it is -10°C outside is modest — comparable to running a desktop computer.
The convection loop between shells, described in The Shape of Shelter, works here too. Warm air from the ceiling of the inner shell circulates down through the shell gap and re-enters at floor level. Your feet stay warm without a floor heater. In summer, the process reverses — hot air vents through the gap and exits through upper shell vents, providing passive cooling without air conditioning on all but the hottest days.
The Commute Is Twenty Steps
The psychological value of physical separation between home and work is well-documented. People who work in dedicated spaces report higher productivity, better work-life boundaries, and less burnout than those who work from bedrooms, kitchens, or living rooms.
But a separate building — a converted garage, a garden office, a renovated shed — typically costs $15,000-$40,000. That prices out most remote workers.
The Ergosphere sits in your backyard. Material cost is $4,000-$6,500. Build time is 40-60 hours. The twenty-step commute creates the physical separation that your brain needs to switch between home mode and work mode. When you close the door, you are at work. When you open it, you are home.
The plinth foundation means no concrete, no permits in most jurisdictions, and no permanent modification to your property. If you move, the Ergosphere comes with you — unbolt it, flatpack the panels, reassemble at the new location.
Power and Connectivity
Every wire in an Ergosphere routes through the shell gap. Power, ethernet, fiber — all of it runs in the continuous service void between shells, entering at the base and emerging through grommeted panel openings wherever you need an outlet or a connection.
No surface-mounted conduit. No exposed cables. No drilling through structural panels. The service void exists because of the double-shell geometry, and it accommodates any wire, duct, or pipe you need to route.
A single 20-amp circuit from your house panel provides more than enough power for a workstation, monitor, lighting, and climate control. The run from your main panel to the Ergosphere is a standard exterior-rated cable — the same kind an electrician would run to a detached garage.
For connectivity, a direct ethernet run through conduit from your router provides wired speeds without the latency and dropout issues of long-range Wi-Fi. The shell gap makes the cable invisible from both inside and outside.
What You Actually Get
Ninety-five square feet of usable interior space. Seven feet of height at desk level, ten feet at the peak. Acoustic isolation from your household. Wrap-around natural light. Year-round climate control for the energy cost of a space heater. A dedicated workspace with a door that closes, twenty steps from your kitchen.
For $4,000-$6,500 in materials and three to four weekends of build time.
The geometry is not aesthetic — though it does look striking in a backyard. The geometry is functional. The shape creates the acoustic isolation, the thermal efficiency, the natural light distribution, and the service routing that make a workspace actually work. A rectangular shed can give you four walls and a roof. The Ergosphere gives you an environment engineered for the thing you do inside it.
Configure an Ergosphere — place windows, choose insulation, plan your layout
Read the Full Specs — dimensions, climate data, power requirements
The Shape of Shelter — the geometry behind every Thiosphere variant
Join the Community — remote workers and builders welcome