Artificial Intelligence Transforming Architecture
How AI is Transforming Architecture: White Ink’s Journey with the AICC.
How AI is Transforming Architecture: White Ink’s Journey with the AICC.
Based in Belfast, White Ink Architects has spent the last 20 years bringing bold, design-led thinking to projects across residential, hospitality, commercial, healthcare, and education sectors. With a team of around 40, they blend creativity with technical precision, offering everything from initial concept development to Building Information Modeling (BIM) and contractor support.
Like many design practices, White Ink deals with a high volume of PDF drawings, each one containing critical information that must be captured and stored accurately in their SharePoint system. But manually extracting and inputting this data was a time-consuming task that left room for error. They knew there had to be a better way.
Every time a drawing was uploaded to SharePoint, staff had to manually open the file, search for key information like “Employer Name,” “Drawing Number”, "Project,” “Project Number,” “Project Code,” and so on. They then had to type them into SharePoint fields. It was a repetitive, error-prone process, especially when updates or revisions came through in bulk.
As White Ink’s project portfolio grew, so did the administrative burden. What they needed was a smart, scalable way to automate metadata extraction from files and populate them on SharePoint to reduce time spent on manual data entry.
Through the AI Collaboration Centre’s Transformer Programme, White Ink saw an opportunity to use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to automate this task with SharePoint integration. The goal? Upload a drawing
PDF, and have its metadata automatically extracted and updated in SharePoint, accurate, fast, and with zero manual input.
The solution also needed to integrate seamlessly with existing systems, be customisable to evolving drawing formats, and offer meaningful outputs that could be used for reporting and analysis through tools like Excel, Power BI, or Power Automate.
The Transformer Programme gave White Ink direct access to AI specialists who worked alongside their team, from early whiteboarding and scoping right through to proof-of-concept delivery and knowledge transfer.
The AICC team built a bespoke, Python-based solution using open-source libraries, hosted via Azure App Service. The Proof of Concept (PoC) focused on five core functions:
Using EasyOCR to read both text-based and scanned PDFs.
Targeting only the relevant part of the drawing to improve accuracy.
Linking extracted terms (e.g. "Drawing Number") to SharePoint column names.
Breaking down values like drawing numbers into meaningful subfields (Project Code, Volume, etc.)
Seamlessly feeding extracted data back into the SharePoint library.
The solution could be triggered manually or run on a schedule, allowing White Ink to process new uploads in real-time or in batches, depending on their workflow needs.
Working with the AI Collaboration Centre through the Transformer Programme has been a game-changer for us. The hands-on support helped unlock 20 years of project data, streamlining our workflows and saving up to 90% of time spent issuing drawings.
Beyond the technical solution, the collaborative whiteboarding, weekly check-ins, and expert guidance opened our eyes to what’s truly possible with AI. It’s been a lighthouse project for our practice, and a glimpse into the future of architecture.
Due to the success of this project, White Ink is now exploring wider applications of AI across its design and delivery pipeline, from smarter project tracking and document classification to predictive analytics for planning and resourcing. What began as a metadata challenge has sparked a broader cultural shift towards increased AI adoption and digital innovation across the practice.
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