AWI releases updated edition of standards guide

The Architectural Woodwork Institute has published the second edition of the Architectural Woodwork Standards specification guide. The 510-page resource manual, focusing mainly on commercial millwork, replaces the first edition published in 2009.

AWI technical services manager Ashley Goodin says the most significant change is an updated format. “There are better graphics and explanations of veneer matching and veneer components and panel systems as well as casework in Edition Two,” she says.

The overall goal of the publication is to provide the industry with a clear communication tool, so woodworkers and design professionals are using the same terminology and setting the same expectations for the types of products and methods of construction, according to Goodin.

“It is also as a tool to help with bidding apples-to-apples on a project. For instance, if a design professional specifies custom-grade laminate casework, it ensures that different woodworkers would be using the same materials and at least similar methods of construction for that. So it helps to generate equality on bidding.

“Another purpose is to get what woodwork manufacturers know to be the absolute minimum standards to which they must build when the standards are referenced in contract documents.”

AWI members can purchase the book for $25. For non-members, the cost is $125.

Contact: Architectural Woodwork Institute. Tel: 571-323-3636. www.awinet.org

This article originally appeared in the November 2014 issue.