The 'engineer” on the magic mountain: Integrating building performance with design

There is a widespread misperception in architectural schools that anyone, student or teacher, interested in evaluating building performance likely lacks well-developeddesign skills; that perhaps the two mindsets are fundamentally incompatible. However, this paper presents the argument that the design process that leads to compelling spaces can, and optimally will be, the same process that leads to valid, versus smoke-and-mirrors, building analyses. The linking of technical prowess with design skills is a constant and worthwhile endeavor for architectural faculty and their students, particularly in this renaissance of age of sustainability when the effects of the built environment on the ecosystem can no longer reasonably be ignored. This paper gives pedagogical examples of means by which students in an environmental building systems course taught by the author are encouraged to understand buildings' behavior at an elemental level by engaging simple calculation methods, rules of thumb, and quick modeling techniques in their current or recent design projects. In these classes, analysisis brought out of the realm of the purely scientific, where it is often perceived by students as both unapproachable and unassailable, and brought back to the drawing board. Both failures and successes resulting from student engagement with these exercises are shared and examined, student perceptions of this approach are cited, and recommendations for refinement of these strategies are made.