About Building Connection

Building Connection

Overview

Building Connection is an Australian trade magazine and news website for the building industry, published by Lanella Media from Mulgrave, in Melbourne's south-east. It is one of the original titles in the "Connection" family of trade magazines founded by Jeff Patchell — the builders' counterpart to Plumbing Connection, the 1985 title from which the group grew, and to Electrical Connection for electricians. Building Connection is written for builders, building contractors and the wider construction trades, and covers the practical substance of their work: building standards and regulation, defects and building quality, workforce and industry policy, tools, materials and the utes and vehicles builders run.

The title is in active publication. Its website carried news and features dated October 2026 when reviewed — including industry stories on trade-teacher funding, building-surveyor contracting and tradie shortages — published through its standing Features, News, Products and Columns sections.

History

Building Connection was added to Jeff Patchell's publishing business in the group's early years, soon after the 1985 launch of Plumbing Connection, as Patchell applied the same formula trade by trade: an independent magazine, written in plain language for working contractors, built around standards, technique and the business of the trade. The publishing company took the name Connection Magazines in June 2000. Unlike its electrical sister title, whose 1995 founding is documented in detail, Building Connection's precise launch year is not stated in the group's published histories consulted for this profile, and no year is asserted here; what is documented is that it belongs to the group's first group of trade titles and predates Electrical Connection.

The magazine's editorial lineage runs through the stable's small team: John Power, who later returned to edit Plumbing Connection in 2021, records in his own contributor biography that he is a former editor of Building Connection as well. The approach Patchell took with the title was later described by James Tinslay, a former national chief executive of the National Electrical and Communications Association, who recalled that Patchell "was determined to take the 'every man' approach he had successfully applied to plumbers and builders and apply it to electrical contractors" — a remark that captures how the building title, like the plumbing original, was pitched at working contractors rather than executives. In 2019 the Connection Magazines business — Building Connection included — was sold through a management buy-out to Lanella Media Pty Ltd, which has published the titles since. Founder Jeff Patchell remains involved with the group as an editorial consultant.

Content and Coverage

Building Connection's website organises its journalism under Features, News, Products and Columns, and the mix reflects the working concerns of builders. Standards and building quality are a long-standing emphasis: the title's columns have returned for years to waterproofing failures in wet areas and below ground, non-conforming building products and window condensation — subjects pursued in a long-running column by building-quality campaigner Jerry Tyrrell, whose 2019 contribution, "Change is needed", argued the industry's case on defects. News coverage follows the industry's institutions and pressures: Housing Industry Association and Australian Institute of Building Surveyors announcements, Standards Australia developments, and the workforce shortages constraining housing delivery all featured in October 2026.

Alongside the technical and regulatory coverage, the magazine runs product news — tools, battery platforms, ceiling and plasterboard systems, safety equipment — and substantial vehicle coverage aimed at builders who run utes and four-wheel-drives, including October 2026 features on Ford's expanded Ranger Super Duty range and Toyota's revised LandCruiser 70 Series, with motoring writer Tony O'Kane among the bylines on the site's vehicle coverage. Its lead feature in October 2026 addressed how construction firms can build more with the workforce they have, and its October 2026 news included the Housing Industry Association's welcome for a $5 million federal pilot to move experienced tradespeople into vocational teaching, the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors' call for action over Victorian building-surveyor contracts, research on sole-trader earnings across the trades, Kennards Hire research on Australians' reliance on tradies, and Standards Australia's decision to conclude its training platform. Product coverage in the same period ranged from Arbortech's ALLSAW extension pole and Milwaukee's upgraded M18 battery system to Gyprock's expanded ceiling range and site weather-monitoring technology. The standing columns displayed on its homepage — waterproofing wet areas, below-ground waterproofing, non-conforming products, window condensation management, customer loyalty and the value of word of mouth, and materials pieces asking whether bamboo is timber or grass and whether oak is the best timber in Australia — give the title a reference library on the recurring defect and business questions of the industry. Business columns address the commercial side of building, from customer loyalty and word-of-mouth marketing to materials choices. The result is a generalist trade title for the building industry rather than a single-specialty journal.

Audience and Reach

Building Connection is written for Australia's building industry: licensed builders and building contractors, their staff, and the suppliers, manufacturers and trainers around them, distributed nationally to the trade. The publisher has extended the title's reach into vocational training: in November 2017 Connection Magazines announced a programme with TAFE NSW under which 50 TAFE NSW colleges teaching building, plumbing or electrical services received bulk copies of the group's three trade magazines, Building Connection among them, on a quarterly basis — an arrangement TAFE NSW's industry liaison manager Greg Cheetham said gave teachers and students access to the latest industry thinking and product developments beyond the set curriculum. No audited circulation figure for the title was found in the sources consulted, and none is claimed here.

Digital Presence

The magazine's website, buildingconnection.com.au, is its daily face: a news service publishing industry stories, product announcements and features on a rolling basis, organised by its Features, News, Products and Columns sections, with its archive of columns and explainers remaining searchable online. The site is operated on the web platform the publisher shares across its trade titles — Building Connection, Plumbing Connection and Electrical Connection each run from the same system under their own domains — and the title maintains a presence on social and digital magazine platforms under the Building Connection Magazine name. When reviewed in October 2026 the site was current, leading with that week's building-industry news.

Ownership and Organisation

Building Connection is published by Lanella Media Pty Ltd, which acquired the Connection Magazines business in a 2019 management buy-out, from the group's office at 2/18-22 Lexia Place, Mulgrave, Victoria — the Melbourne base this directory records. The title does not publish a separate masthead on its website; it is produced by the group's shared editorial team, in which Sean Carroll is credited as editor across the trades and Jeremy Sweet is named as the group's general manager in the stable's mastheads, working with founder Jeff Patchell as editorial consultant and a panel of industry contributors, of whom columnist Jerry Tyrrell is among the longest-serving bylines. Its sister titles are Plumbing Connection (established 1985) and Electrical Connection (established 1995).

Contact and Availability

Building Connection's current news, features and columns are published at buildingconnection.com.au, and the title is distributed to the building trade throughout Australia from the publisher's Mulgrave office. Subscriptions and enquiries for the Connection titles are handled by the publisher on 1800 623 214, and the publisher's office number published in the group's colophons is 03 9542 9000. The publisher's address is Lanella Media Pty Ltd, 2/18-22 Lexia Place, Mulgrave, VIC 3170.