Renovating existing buildings and designing waterproofing and air/vapor barrier systems to form a reliable and continuous transition to existing adjacent systems presents significant waterproofing design challenges. Improperly detailed interfaces can result in leakage. This leakage risk is amplified depending on the existing adjacent waterproofing system’s material components and configurations. Not only is leakage through buried plaza systems detrimental to the building structure and disruptive to the occupants, identifying and repairing leakage paths through buried waterproofing conditions is difficult and costly. This presentation will review how fundamentals learned from investigations of leaking plaza systems can be applied to appropriately detail vulnerable transitions between a new plaza waterproofing system to adjacent existing systems.

Presenter: Sophia Salah is a consulting engineer and has been with Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc. (SGH) for over ten years. Sophia has her Bachelor of Science and Master’s Degrees in structural engineering from University of California San Diego (UCSD). She is licensed as a Professional Engineer in California and Massachusetts and works frequently with architects, owners, and contractors in the greater Boston market. Ms. Salah is experienced in both the west coast and New England regions, and specializes in investigation and design of complex below-grade waterproofing, plaza waterproofing, roofing systems, opaque cladding, and curtain wall systems for new construction and rehabilitation projects.