The learning experience of Heath: a parametric life cycle building performance assessment tool

Paper in proceeding, 2025

Although several tools exist for life cycle building performance assessment, they see little use in architectural design because aspects of practice integration have been neglected. In order to provide a practice-adapted analysis framework which can support important activities like sense-making and decision-making in early architectural design stages, when the information available is scarce and rapidly changing, we developed the life cycle building performance assessment tool Heath. Heath is integrated in the parametric design environment Rhino/Grasshopper, and combines existing, validated tools for quantitative assessment while providing a streamlined workflow which supports features like geometric modelling, goal setting, result interpretation, and alternative comparison. Heath was developed through iterative prototyping driven by the needs in a pedagogical environment, and tested by architecture students in a course emphasising sense-making with an environmental lens. The first prototype was implemented as a pure visual programming script, and the second prototype leveraged HumanUI to provide a panel-based interface. We found that in comparison to the initial, visual-programming based script, the panel-based, web-like interface improved the discoverability and liveness of the workflow, allowing students to focus on the interpretation of the environmental assessment insted of needing to spend a lot of time setting up the assessment model. The finding should guide software development for improved practice integration, and help improve educational approaches to introducing digital analysis tools in integrated architectural design education.