I mean, the other side of the coin is that engineering schools are a giant circle jerk that churn out thousands of graduates every year who if left to their own devices will design things that cannot be made out of inputs and using processes that are not appropriate.

I'm not saying you gotta prioritize looks but you gotta think a few steps ahead and understand what the ancillary criteria that will make or break a design all else being equal, or nearly equal are or what the unstated assumptions of the party evaluating your work (e.g won't look like ass, can be made in volume, etc.) are.

The main design goals were:

- construct a house with good insulation

No word of it being pretty. Houses should look pretty, but it wasn't art class, but physics. And the physics teacher clearly said insulation is the goal (so we learn about the concept).

We had a funtional house (roof, walls, windows, door) with very good insulation. The winning house just looked pretty and its insulation was basically nonexistent.