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Building Science
Understanding the physical behavior of the building as a system
What is Building Performance?
Building science is a field of knowledge that draws upon physics, chemistry, engineering, architecture, and the life sciences. Understanding the physical behavior of the building as a system and how this impacts energy efficiency, durability, comfort, and indoor air quality is essential to innovating high-performance buildings. Modern building science attempts to work with models of the building as a system, and to apply empirical techniques to the effective solution of design problems.
Why Building Science?
Buildings are not guesswork experiments, but exercises in proven techniques based on independent scientific performance. Beginning in the 1980's, the construction industry began seeing more and more defects and failures in construction. Manufacturers expected everyone to trust them without establishing how the materials and assemblies performed. Chief among the problems during that time were moisture and mold accumulations in walls. We have no way of knowing if our guesswork and common sense approach was making the moisture and mold issues better or worse.
Community of Building Science
We soon realized that guesswork and common sense had to be removed from the equation. Independent testing of the performance of products and the assemble of the products was the only way to know if materials and practices would improve the structure. The national and international building science community moved to a systems approach to the entire building. Through testing, the building science community established for the first time accurate date on whether buildings and their components would perform well or fail.
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Today we have construction assembly protocols based on scientific research and testing. These time-honored protocols of yesteryear, and trial and error methods are gone. Replaced by construction protocols dictated by building science and the holistic performance of all components. As a result, we are able, with confidence, to construction durable, comfortable, and efficient structures for the ages. The building science community offers resources and services
