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, working with both clients and contractors to offer everything from initial concept development to Building Information Modeling (BIM).
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 is a time-consuming task, so they wanted to explore a more efficient way.
Each time a drawing was uploaded to SharePoint, staff had to manually open the file and search for key details such as “Employer Name,” “Drawing Number,” “Project,” “Project Number,” and “Project Code.” These details had to be manually entered into SharePoint fields, making the process repetitive and resource-intensive, particularly when handling bulk updates or revisions.
As White Ink’s project portfolio expanded, so did the administrative workload. What they needed was an efficient, scalable solution to automate metadata extraction from files and populate data directly into SharePoint, saving time and reducing manual data entry.
Through the AI Collaboration Centre’s Transformer Programme, White Ink identified an opportunity to leverage Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to automate this process with SharePoint integration.
The objective was to upload a PDF drawing and have its metadata automatically extracted and updated in SharePoint accurately, quickly, and with minimal manual effort.
The solution also needed to seamlessly integrate with existing systems, adapt to evolving drawing formats, and provide meaningful outputs for reporting and analysis using 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 the 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 what the industry has to offer”
Due to the success of this project, White Ink is now exploring wider applications of AI across its design and delivery pipeline.
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