Calau & Riera recently increased its specialisation in the area of projecting and designing integrated newsrooms for newspapers, radio and television in collaboration with Innovation Media Consulting, an organisation for which it works as consultants.
With projects requiring the collaboration of many people from different countries, the communication and distribution of technical documents and blueprints is a serious drawback. This invariably meant that people had to carry often cumbersome printed blueprints with them on all their visits.
An additional problem is that sending documents via email is not reliable, in that the sheer volume of messages received can impact upon the time taken to respond. Moreover, guaranteeing that a message has actually been read is not always possible, which is crucial for Office Bcn, as it requires confirmation that all attached blueprints and documents have been opened and viewed.
Luis Calau, a partner architect at Calau & Riera explains: “To solve this issue we started using some cloud-based systems to distribute the drawings. These systems make the sending and receiving of files more convenient. However, the systems we used did not offer confirmation of the opening and printing of the blueprints. The HP ePrint & Share solution has allowed us to share updated information in a dynamic, practical and efficient way,” he said. “Indeed, ePrint & Share classifies and sorts the documents in a very convenient manner, simplifying the entire updating process and the monitoring of changes and progress.”
The HP ePrint & Share solution, which provides a list of benefits to all owners of HP Designjet printers, is a collaboration and printing tool for designers, engineers and architects. Combined with the copying, printing and scanning functions of the HP Designjet T2300 eMFP, it opens a new world of possibilities that improve the user’s work experience and simplify the monitoring and development of projects. Moreover, HP ePrint & Share can generate a PDF file while it prints.
The advantages of having a filing space in the cloud in which to store CAD files, PDFs and any supplementary documentation is that it is kept in a place that is accessible from any location and by any authorised people. All this in an orderly manner and with a record of the opening and viewing of each document. These advantages have greatly improved the reliability of this architectural studio’s workflow.
The HP ePrint & Share collaboration tool incorporates an email notification system that lets the members of a project know when a new file is added.
“Knowing immediately when there are new documents available and whether or not they have been downloaded or viewed gives us peace of mind and the assurance that everyone involved in a project has the most up-to-date information,” said Luis Calau. “It saves in potential issues, and construction work, as we are always sure that the blueprints used are the most updated ones.”
According to Calau, scanning capabilities have been a crucial factor in improving the company’s workflow.
“We hold meetings with all the blueprints over a table and make drawings and corrections by hand,” he said. “Being able to scan the corrected blueprint in order to incorporate it into file and send it to the draughtsman using ePrint & Share gives us a flexibility that had disappeared many years ago. This way of working is much more natural and closer to an architect’s way of thinking and working.
“Incorporating the HP Designjet T2300 eMultifunction Printer as part of our operations has boosted our capabilities for printing blueprints, providing greater time-efficiencies and making us more dynamic,” he added.
As well as direct printing from the design software, integrating HP ePrint & Share with Autodesk’s AutoCAD enables users to scan and convert into vectors different blueprints, drawings and corrections performed on printed blueprints in order to re-introduce them into the AutoCAD files.
“We print a lot more since we purchased this multifunctional equipment. For us, it has been like going back in time ten years in the sense of removing the limitations of CAD design, but without losing any of its advantages,” says Luis Calau. “Combining the convenience and power of CAD design with the possibility of making manual corrections directly onto a blueprint that can then be incorporated into the CAD workflow, greatly increases our flexibility.
“HP ePrint & Share has become a critical tool for us given its ease of use and the confidence it provides us in monitoring the process of sharing and distributing information.”