An Australian outdoor living journal
Est. in the spirit of 1984, Burleigh Heads
The map
Five rooms of the journal. Every essay lives in one of them, and every hub is linked from the masthead and the footer.
Timber, composite and finish
A designer deck is a materials problem before it is a furniture problem. This hub covers the species, profiles, fasteners and coatings that survive Australian sun, salt, termites and wet summers — and the ones that only look the part on a showroom board.
6 essays · Open the materials hub
Plan, proportion and climate
Good deck design is less about a mood board and more about how people actually move, sit, cook and get out of the weather. These essays look at Australian blocks — steep, skinny, salty, bushfire-prone — and how a deck can make a house live larger without shouting.
6 essays · Open the design hub
Structure, approvals and risk
A beautiful deck that cannot be certified, or that fails in the first wet season, is not a designer deck. This hub is the unglamorous half of the craft: footings, spans, termite management, bushfire construction, access and the paperwork that keeps a job on the right side of the NCC.
6 essays · Open the build hub
Maintenance and restoration
Australian decks live harder than the catalogues admit. UV, leaf tannin, coastal salt and summer storms will find every missed coat and every trapped joint. These pieces are a practical calendar for keeping timber and composite looking like they belong to the house.
5 essays · Open the care hub
Rooms without walls
The old Queensland brief was simple: a long-lasting outdoor room you would actually use. This hub is about that finished life — cooking, shade, heat, planting and the circulation that turns a platform into a place.
5 essays · Open the outdoor living hub