A design office, built for steel framers.
Detailing Works is a specialist light gauge steel design and detailing practice. We exist to give frame and truss fabricators — in start-up mode or long established — a design partner who understands the architect's file, the industry software and the factory floor equally well.
Thoughtful by design
Light gauge steel is an unforgiving material to detail badly and a rewarding one to detail well. A frame that has been properly thought through goes together on the floor without argument, stands up on site without improvisation, and carries its loads exactly as the engineer intended.
That kind of result comes from care rather than speed alone: resolving the awkward roof junction rather than leaving it to the installer, choosing the section that suits the roll-former rather than the one that merely calculates, and asking the question early rather than assuming the answer.
It also comes from respecting the way each fabricator works. Every factory we work with has developed its own conventions for good reasons. Our job is to work within them — and, where we're invited to, help refine them.
Where the experience comes from
Detailing Works brings extensive design and detailing experience across residential building, modular and off-site construction, and commercial projects — much of it inside factory-built environments where the design has to serve the production line as much as the drawing.
- Residential — detached homes, duplexes, townhouses and multi-residential, from volume project homes to complex architectural one-offs
- Modular and off-site — volumetric modules, panelised systems and transportable buildings designed for factory assembly, transport and craning
- Commercial — education, health, retail, accommodation and industrial projects combining light gauge steel with structural steel
- Light gauge steel design and detailing in Vertex BD and FRAMECAD, with CNC output to any machine type
- Structural steel design and detailing in Tekla Structures, including fabricator shop drawings
- Full digital twins designed with DFMA thinking; CNC output for roll-formers and automated cladding, lining and sub-assembly lines; complete ERP-ready bills of materials
- Design optimisation for lean, factory-built manufacturing and for project home builders running standard designs at scale — reducing labour input and waste build after build
- Working knowledge of AS/NZS 4600, the NCC and the NZ Building Code, and the wind, cyclonic, snow and seismic regimes across both countries
What you can expect from us
Client-focused, always
We shape the engagement around your business, not the other way around. Your standards, your platform, your depth of deliverable.
Specialist knowledge
Steel framing design is our whole field. We keep current with AS/NZS 4600, the NCC and NZ Building Code, and we are deep in Vertex BD, FRAMECAD and Tekla Structures — the platforms that drive modern roll-forming and steel fabrication, whoever makes the machine.
Clear communication
Queries are raised early, in plain language, with a drawing attached. You'll never be surprised by an assumption discovered on the factory floor.
Discreet by default
Many of our clients present our work as their own. We never disclose client relationships, and on black-ops engagements nobody outside your business needs to know we exist.
Australia and New Zealand
We are based in Queensland and work with fabricators throughout Australia and New Zealand. Design and detailing is delivered digitally, so distance is no obstacle — though we value the occasional factory visit and make time for them wherever we can.
Both markets have their own regulatory frameworks, climate loads and building cultures. We work fluently across both, including cyclonic and high-wind regions in Australia and seismic design considerations in New Zealand.
Let's find out if we're a fit.
Tell us about your business and we'll come back with honest thoughts on how we could help.