The concept of building performance is inherently multidisciplinary and highly practical, especially for buildings with specific functions. Although it contains both qualitative and quantitative content,  due to its basis in scientific simulation and the technical bias of the concept itself, quantitative content occupies the main part of the concept that is perceived, and qualitative issues are quantified or quantifiable content is used instead of qualitative content for analysis in many projects.​

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In communication and consumption, building performance relies on images, simulated, and predicted by images, and becomes part of Image performance itself. Operation tools to improve building performance from the perspective of information exchange has become a kind of image under the propaganda of software companies for “efficient tools, better output”; the data visualization of scientific simulation has developed into images in a special aesthetic style that can be used to represent the excellent building performance of the building; and visible design strategies subjectively or passively become images, complete the perception mode of “green symbols (like solar panels, green roofs) = green building = better building performance", that is, building performance overall become an image; at the same time, the simulation technology for renderings provide great convenience to such design. Based on the research of building performance certification-LEED, we can see that in addition to the attention economy, visual culture, and image dissemination in digital media, there are government developers, organizations, architects, and material suppliers involved in the process, binding building performance to green.  For LEED, however, most green points can be obtained by purchasing or installing certain products and equipment, and the evaluation is based on energy modeling that is not directly related to the actual operation of the building, for which documentation is all that is required for certification. ​

 

Based on this research and the phenomena of greenwash that I experienced during my two years of master's degree in Europe, I have narrowed the focus of image performance to eco-green-sustainable buildings. The project is intended to respond to the above thoughts, but unfortunately, not all of them can be expressed visually or reflected by design. The project consists of a progressive development of drawings that respond to the process from representation to simulation to prediction, and the architectural images in the “support” section of the LIID website that respond to the fragmented and structured architectural design in the broader means of simulation, as well as to the final hyperreality scene.

 

​Image performance itself is a broader topic, from the Instagram photo context, architectural wonders in developing countries, the race of high-rise luxury, etc., all of these reflect the pursuit of image performance, and this project only discusses a small part of it. But overall, looking back at the whole project, I think I can say that under these trends, for building performance, content that is not data and is not computerized is gradually becoming invisible. And for Image performance, the content in architecture that is not an image, that cannot be consumed and sold, is also dying out. At last, let me conclude with a quote from Jorge Luis Borges In his one-paragraph short story “On Exactitude in Science”, which inspired and stayed in my mind throughout the process.