dry construction

In autumn 2019, during renovation of an 18-year-old property, I peeled back wallpaper and found uniform brown staining across the entire back surface. That moment made me look seriously at gypsum board for the first time. Dry construction methods replaced wet plaster with boards and wallpaper, cutting build time from weeks to days. Efficient. But gypsum board is a porous material — it absorbs moisture and releases it, which is why interior humidity stays relatively stable across seasons. The problem is that the same porous structure absorbs odor molecules and VOCs with equal indifference. The moisture-regulating property and the odor-accumulation problem are not separate issues. They come from the same physical structure. That is the paradox I keep returning to — and I still have no clean answer for it.