This article discusses performance-driven design and fabrication as one of the emerging approaches in architectural design, where computational tools are used for integrated design exploration, analysis and fabrication. It discusses development of a new course that integrates simulations into the design process with special consideration for parametric design. Simulations and digital modeling are used to investigate design performance while fabrication is used as rapid prototyping method to explore forms, material properties and actual physical characteristics of the design. This course was a collaboration between University of Cincinnati, Perkins+Will and University of North Carolina Greensboro. The objectives were to investigate best practices for performance-driven design and the correlation between digital modeling and physical prototyping through digital fabrication techniques. The article presents several student projects from the course that explore the general process.