Engineers iteratively apply their disciplinary knowledge to develop solutions to ill-defined problems considering varyingand often competing criteria and constraints. Design is a process engineers use to solve ill-defined problems necessary tofulfill human needs. While worldwide institutions are increasingly introducing engineering design in undergraduateengineering education, the extent of integration of design into the curriculum ocurr at varying degrees. In this study wefocus on a higher education institution in Colombia through a single case design. We specifically evaluated the effect of aworkshop designed to introduce engineering design to engineering students in a context where there have been limitedinitiatives and resources to introduce engineering design. Two groups of students from different engineering programs in apublic university in the Colombian Caribbean region participated in an eight-hour workshop. The workshop involved adesign challenge of creating a net-zero energy house using a CAD tool. The two groups were comprised of 20 systemsengineering students and 25 industrial engineering students. Pre- and post- instruments were collected and analyzed toassess the effect of the workshop on students’ understanding about engineering, disciplinary knowledge, and effectivepractices of engineering design. The results suggest that the design workshops employing CAD simulations can supportengineering education in three ways by: (1) broadening student knowledge about the engineering practice; (2) fostering theacquisition disciplinary content