Dr. Russell Richman

Russell Richman’s house was a nightmare when he bought it. Moldy and dingy, it was a paradise for raccoons and rats. But he wasn’t intimidated. All he saw was potential.

Richman has a knack for seeing beyond exteriors. A civil engineer and building scientist with a private consulting practice, he enjoys the hidden challenges of every new project. “You never know what you’re going to find,” he says. “I’ll get a call about a leak on the 3rd floor of a downtown building, but the source will be on the 23rd.”

The house that Richman bought had leaks, too, of course. So he gutted it and transformed it into a beautiful home for his family. He saw the project as more than a reno; it was research. Eventually Richman published six academic papers based on testing he performed in the home, such as frost dilatometry and electromagnetic frequency exposure reduction. None of this would have been possible, however, without vision—the kind that Richman says every architect and building scientist needs. “You need the ability stand in the space and see the after, not the before.”