An artist who has said of himself: "I have a bad record with destroying things," has won this year's Turner prize.

Simon Starling is no provocateur. Nor was he a shock winner - the bookies made him the even-money favourite. But none the less, it will come as no surprise to those who regard the Turner prize with disdain that he has won £25,000 for dismantling and assembling a wooden shed.

Starling, who was born in 1967, found it on the banks of the Rhine, took it apart, made parts of it into a boat and used the vessel to carry the remaining parts of it downriver to Basle. It was then reassembled as a shed in a Swiss museum.

The display of his work at the Turner prize exhibition at Tate Britain also includes a makeshift motorised bicycle, which Starling used to ride across the Tabernas desert in southern Spain. It was powered by hydrogen in lightweight canisters that reacted with oxygen in the atmosphere to produce water as a byproduct. The artist used that in turn to paint a simple watercolour of a cactus he found en route. The watercolour is installed alongside the oversize, makeshift bike.

Starling, who calls his work a "physical manifestation of a thought process", said he was pleased that his work had been noticed.

"It's nice to be recognised," he said last night. "I'm not somebody well known as an artist in this country. It's nice to come home and get a big cheque."

According to the Tate's curator Rachel Tant: "He's interested in the creation of objects; he is a researcher, traveller, narrator. He looks at how things got to be the way they are, and reasserts a human connection between processes we take for granted."

The prize was awarded last night by the arts minister David Lammy, who said: "Its true genius is that for a couple of days every year, everyone gets to be an expert, no matter what they think about art."

At the ceremony Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate and chair of the judges, praised all four artists but also took the opportunity to defend the Tate against the recent allegations of corruption surrounding the purchase of Chris Ofili's installation The Upper Room, criticised in some quarters because of Ofili's status as a trustee of the Tate. The matter was the subject of a demonstration outside Tate Britain last night by the Stuckist group of artists, which declares itself to be against the "pretensions of conceptual art".

Sir Nicholas said: "Tate has been acquiring works by serving artist trustees since the 1950s but in recent years we have decided to do this only in exceptional circumstances." He admitted that "there may be room for further improvement". But he added: "I defy anybody who has actually taken the time and trouble to see the work not to agree with the trustees' decision to acquire this most extraordinary and important piece of work ... I would like to thank most particularly Chris Ofili, who could have easily sold this work abroad, but chose instead to offer it at a greatly reduced sum to Tate and who has also pledged [to donate] additional work."

Traditionalists will be disappointed that the only painter (and only woman) on the shortlist was denied the top prize. London-based Gillian Carnegie, an early bookies' favourite, apparently paints in an academic style, producing landscapes and portraits. But her works, though they look at first comfortingly old-fashioned, are often disturbing on second view.

Jim Lambie was the artist who many artworld insiders favoured to win. Whereas last year's Turner prize winner, Jeremy Deller, infuriated some by announcing that he could neither paint nor draw, Lambie has drawn criticism for saying he loved drawing and painting as an art student, but now prefers to stick vinyl tape on floors and make oversize versions of kitsch ornaments.

A gentle, banal piano melody accompanies the installation by Darren Almond, which, with its film of his grandmother watching the dancing in the ballroom at Blackpool and film of a gently bubbling fountain provide, according to Ms Tant, "a space where everybody can tap into their own memories".

This year's judges were journalist Louisa Buck, curator Kate Bush, critic Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith and gallery director Eckhard Schneider.

Asked what he intended to do with his prize money, Starling said he wanted to throw a replica Henry Moore sculpture into Lake Ontario. "There is a big problem with zebra mussels in the lake which have invaded and taken over and there is a Henry Moore in Toronto called Warrior with Shield. I thought it would be nice to grow some mussels on the Henry Moore for six months, then take it out and exhibit it in a museum." But, he added: "I don't like to be thought of as an eccentric. It's a serious business."