Architectural Engineering

Architectural engineering, also called building engineering, is the discipline that engineers the construction of buildings themselves: their structural, environmental, mechanical, electrical, fire protection and increasingly computational systems, designed and coordinated as one integrated whole rather than as separate add-ons to a finished design. That focus separates it from civil engineering, whose own scope runs to the broader class of infrastructure, bridges, roads and transportation networks, and from architecture proper, whose practitioners the field treats as concerned chiefly with a building's aesthetic, functional and spatial design rather than the technical systems that make that design actually work. An architectural engineer instead specializes in the technical and structural side of a building, ensuring it is safe, efficient and sustainable by engineering its HVAC, plumbing, electrical and structural systems together as one coordinated performance problem. The profession emerged over the twentieth century as buildings grew technologically complex enough to need a specialist who could stand between an architect's vision and its engineering implementation, translating design intent into a building that actually performs as intended.