You might think by now civilisation may just have run out of ideas for new designs for bespoke timber doors and windows? Not even close.
Here at Acacia Joinery, we’re keen to share our top list of who we’re following online, including social media, for inspiration and trends. It’s a moving feast of ideas, though, because working with timber is such a dynamic global industry.
No point in prioritising our list because, well, they’re all our favourites. The list shows that even though we’re based in Australia we keep our sights global for inspiration for architecturally designed timber doors and windows.
Australian National Construction Review
The ANCR for short, is gives you an insight into the nation’s top construction projects and regularly has special features on suppliers and contractors to construction. Each issue is jam-packed with images and details and regularly hits 200 or 300 plus pages. Free to view on ISSUU.
Australian Timber Design Awards
That’s the link to the site for this year’s awards, but you can check out previous years – including winners – here. These awards show top-notch work happening around the country.
Forest & Wood Products Australia
This one isn’t so much for ideas and inspiration, more for our work as being part of this industry. Then again, we do like their advocacy in promoting the advantage of wood products. Good to keep tabs on research and development in the sector, too.
Make It Wood
This site is part of the Planet Ark Environmental Foundation. Make It Wood celebrates timber big time, particularly using responsibly sourced wood, which is something we do, too. Check out their exemplar projects, there’s a good chance you may have been in these buildings. We liked the recent guest post from TV’s Grand Designs’ Australia host, Peter Maddison, about the perception of wood throughout architectural history.
Window and Door Industry Council
This is the organisation for businesses which manufacture timber windows and doors for the building and construction industry. That’s us to a ‘T’. You can flick through their free regular magazine here. The have input into the Australian Woodworking Industry Suppliers’ Assoc Ltd annual exhibition in Sydney (to be held 4 to 7 July this year). Lots of useful links here about timber, standards, glass, sustainability and more.
Window into the UK
Double Glazing Blogger (link is above) is good for free, independent analysis, industry reports and more for what’s happening in the UK. This recent post about the impact of robots – aka robots – on the window industry was thought provoking. How to balance that with custom-made bespoke windows is an interesting question. Sounds like something worth tackling in a future blog post.
Dezeen, architecture and design magazine
Yep, that’s probably a play on the word ‘design’. Their content is highly shared. One of their most popular posts was this one featuring how slatted timber panels/walls gave this Uruguay house loads of flexibility and style. Nice time-lapse photography to show those panels in action.
Pinterest
This is the site we flick through on our down time because you sure can lose hours exploring. Here are the links to exterior door, interior timber door, timber window, timber door to name a few.
Japanese joinery
Hear us out on this one. You know joinery is our thing, so this Dorian Bracht ‘Joint Ventures series’, which delves into the fine craft of Japanese joinery, is a joy to watch (and listen to with the cool jazz-funk background music on this YouTube channel). This Digg post is a good intro to the site. Sometimes it’s not just about doors and windows, but the wood, sigh.
Ok, we admit it. We do peek at what others in our industry our doing. Here’s one from New Zealand that’s caught our eye a few times.
ArchiPro
ArchiPro is New Zealand’s biggest resource for architecture online. It’s a website for building and renovating aimed at helping people in New Zealand from ideas-to occupancy stage. Their regular publications (you can flick through them here) are chock full of gorgeous contemporary designs. And not just for timber windows and doors, mind you. And we’re not the only ones looking as their Facebook page nudges almost 80,000 followers, too. Not bad for an organisation that’s only been going since 2014.
And another … across the Pacific Ocean this time …
Archtizer
This is inspiration on a dreamy global scale from this US-based journal. We’ve linked you to the ‘inspiration’ page of architectural case studies to “spark your creativity and inspire your next project”, says the site. This one was our personal favourite – Olson Kundig’s the ‘world’s most beautiful door’, which got us scratching our head … could this work in timber? Check it out.
Share with us your favourite site for inspiration about schmick-designed timber windows and doors.
