On Thursday, February 11, the AIANY WIA Committee hosted a talk by building scientist Christine Williamson. Christine has spent her career in discovering why buildings fail, and working with owners, architects, and builders to remedy the problems. Through her Instagram page and website, Building Science Fight Club (BSFC), she helps architects and architects-in-training acquire a technical foundation in building science.

Christine shared her personal journey and motivation for starting BSFC. She challenged the “fake it til you make it” attitude that professionals, especially women, are expected to abide by in order to succeed, and encouraged us to not hesitate in asking questions and to not feel ashamed if we don’t know things. Her presentation “Why Buildings Leak?” addressed the different approaches to water protection in buildings, what causes leaking, typical mistakes we make while addressing waterproofing, and the importance of holistic water management. We learnt that often, things cannot be solved by manufactured products, but by sensible design solutions. The presentation was followed by a Q&A session facilitated by Arielle Lapp, AIA, AIANY WIA Media and Communications Manager, and Rosalind Tsang, AIA, AIANY WIA Committee Co-Chair. The fun presentation, accompanied by easy-to-learn catchphrases and occasional appearances of Christine’s puppy, made building science less scary and motivated us to seek further education in the fundamentals of building construction.

We thank Christine Williamson for her engaging and positive presentation, as well as all those who attended and participated in the Q&A. We will always remember Christine’s advice “weep now or weep later” and would like to change it to “weep now or call Christine later”.

A recording of the presentation and some answers to the Q&A will be available on this website soon. We encourage you to visit her Instagram page @BuildingScienceFightClub and website buildingsciencefightclub.com. Some resources she recommended are below: