Catherine Mary Wisnicki

After retiring in 1986, Wisnicki and her husband moved to Naramata, British Columbia where they designed and built an innovative passive solar house.

In 1963, Wisnicki began teaching part-time at the University of British Columbia's school of architecture. She joined the faculty full-time in 1969.

Early in her career, Wisnicki worked with A.J.C. Paine and Lawson & Betts. She also participated in the planning of Arvida, Québec, for the Aluminum Company of Canada (now Alcan). Right after World War II, she undertook a study of prefabricated housing for the Canadian Wooden Aircraft Company in Toronto. As an outcome of the research, she co-authored a major article on the subject of "prefab" houses with city planner E.G. Faludi in 1945.

In 1945, Wisnicki registered with the Ontario Association of Architects, becoming their fourth woman member. That same year, she married Paul Wisnicki, a former aeronautical structural engineer in the Polish Air Force. In 1946, they moved to Vancouver, where she became the second female member to register with the Architectural Institute of British Columbia.

Catherine Mary Wisnicki (née Chard, 19 September 1919 – 21 October 2014) was a Canadian architect, planner and educator. She was the first woman to graduate from the McGill University School of Architecture. Her professional career was spent largely in Vancouver, where she was a senior designer with the firm Sharp, Thompson, Berwick, Pratt (later Thompson Berwick and Pratt and Partners). She taught at the University of British Columbia school of architecture.

Catherine Mary Wisnicki was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1919. She graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor of Arts in History in 1939. She then went on to obtain her Bachelor of Architecture, becoming the first woman to graduate from architecture at McGill in 1943.