MA+Co is a Richmond, Australia-based architecture practice specialising in residential projects of all scales, with a strong focus on multi-residential and affordable housing. Their team of around eight people runs deliberately small — or in Principal & Owner Karen Alcock’s words, “Little big” — so they can stay close to the work while still delivering complex, 50–70 unit developments and affordable housing projects.
As a small studio, they’re constantly looking for technology that helps them work more efficiently without adding headcount, so they can spend as much time as possible on design quality and project outcomes. That desire for efficiency led them to Drawboard Projects, and they haven’t looked back.
Before Drawboard Projects, MA+Co were already trying to reduce their reliance on paper, but COVID forced a rapid shift. Overnight, the team needed to collaborate from separate locations and still maintain the same standard of design coordination and QA.
“We were really struggling to work out how we could design online.”
They found that generic PDF tools and traditional document workflows weren’t designed for architecture. Standard markup tools worked for text-heavy documents but fell short when they needed to communicate precise details to builders, sketch options, or overlay drawings.
Being a Mac-based office focused on design reviews also limited their options.
“There’s not a lot of tools available for Mac, and a lot of the software isn’t really designed for design-led practices, it’s very engineering-based.”
During lockdowns, the core problem became clear: they needed to recreate the feeling of “sitting next to each other” over a set of drawings, but online, and without drowning in printed markups.
MA+Co adopted Drawboard Projects during COVID and have since made it the primary place where drawings, markups, and issues live.
“For me Drawboard is our core resource. I want all the drawings on there so I can access, comment, and send information to staff really quickly.”
They initially brought it in as a practical way to keep working from home, but it quickly became the core environment for how projects move through the office.
Drawboard Projects now acts as Karen’s digital “stick set” for every active job. All current drawings are uploaded so she can access them instantly on her iPad, phone, or desktop, review multiple projects in quick succession, and provide clear direction to the team
“The real bonus is that I don't have to go to the server and SharePoint to access all the projects I’m across”
For the wider team, Projects is the default place to work on drawings together. Rather than dividing up PDFs and hoping nothing overlaps, everyone can open the same file, add markups, and see each other’s work in real time.
“I think one of the most useful things is the collaboration. We can all be working on a markup for a project in the same file, ticking things off as tasks so there’s no doubling up and you get a lot more efficiency.”
It also helps their flexibility; If someone has to step away, another team member can jump in and pick up exactly where they left off, with the markups and task list showing what’s been done and what’s still open.
Shop drawings are a critical part of MA+Co’s quality assurance process for their design-and-construct (D&C) projects.
Today, those packages are uploaded into Drawboard Projects, where Karen and her team run a multi-stage review:
“We get the shop drawings in, upload them, I’ll do a general overview, another staff member does a detailed review, and then we do a final review. And it’s all in the same document.”
Layers, exports, and the stamp tool help them manage feedback, approve large batches of drawings, and maintain a clear, traceable QA process at scale without passing around paper sets.
On site and in design or coordination meetings, the team uses iPads with Drawboard Projects to collaborate with builders and stakeholders, capturing decisions and feedback in real time. Builders sometimes sketch directly on the drawing with a stylus in the field.
“We can take our iPads out to site, work live with a builder looking at an updated drawing, sketch something up, and then come back and have that record. It’s all there instead of disappearing on a piece of paper.”
They also share Drawboard Projects’ free guest access with builders and other collaborators so they can access plans on their own without a subscription. But according to Karen, some builders end up getting their own subscription anyway:
“We've had builders who get a subscription so that they can take their drawings with them.”
Across these workflows, Drawboard Projects has fit how each team member prefers to work. Some type, others rely on the stylus, and many mix both depending on the task.
Standardising on Drawboard Projects has led to tangible savings and more streamlined day-to-day workflows for MA+Co.
Most markups and reviews are now digital, which has cut printing to a minimum. The studio still prints occasionally for specific client presentations, but even then, sketches are scanned back into Drawboard so the digital record stays complete.
“The amount of money we’ve saved on printing alone basically bought us an iPad a month for a year.”
Day-to-day, the office now runs in a mostly paperless way.
“At the moment we’re pretty paperless because we just don’t need it anymore. We do all our markups digitally.”
Centralising shop drawings, design markups, and issues has also improved risk management. On large multi-residential projects, they now have a clear history of what was queried, what was agreed, and when changes were made, which helps when resolving disagreements with consultants or stakeholders. The revision structure in Projects also makes it simple to step back through earlier versions when needed.
Internally, tagging issues to specific team members and anchoring conversations to drawings has reduced rework and made delegation smoother, especially when Karen is working remotely or across many projects at once.
“It gives us a lot more flexibility in managing the team. If someone has a question they can tag it to me, I can respond even if I’m not in the office, and we can keep projects moving.”
Culturally, the team sums up the impact in two words: efficient and collaborative. They feel they’d lose a lot if they had to go back to paper-based markups.
“If we had to stop using Drawboard and go back to paper, our processes would be much less streamlined.”
In the next few years, MA+Co expect housing to remain at the centre of their work, particularly affordable and social housing at a time when housing issues are increasingly urgent.
“The core of our work is housing and there’s been no point in history where housing has been so critical.”
Alongside project delivery, they’re investing more in broader contributions to the housing conversation.
“We actually want to make a meaningful commitment. We’ve started a studio at Monash looking at new housing types, and we want to layer our practice work with what’s happening at the state and government level to see how we can do housing better and make a real contribution.”
Drawboard Projects gives them a way to support that ambition without sacrificing control or flexibility on their core projects.
With a stable, collaborative environment for drawings and markups, they can continue to scale the complexity and impact of their work while keeping the studio “little big”: small, nimble, and design-led.
"I think Drawboard Projects gives us something that’s really nimble… it gives us a bit of an edge.”
MA+Co is a Richmond, Australia-based architecture practice specialising in residential projects of all scales, with a strong focus on multi-residential and affordable housing. Their team of around eight people runs deliberately small — or in Principal & Owner Karen Alcock’s words, “Little big” — so they can stay close to the work while still delivering complex, 50–70 unit developments and affordable housing projects.
As a small studio, they’re constantly looking for technology that helps them work more efficiently without adding headcount, so they can spend as much time as possible on design quality and project outcomes. That desire for efficiency led them to Drawboard Projects, and they haven’t looked back.
Before Drawboard Projects, MA+Co were already trying to reduce their reliance on paper, but COVID forced a rapid shift. Overnight, the team needed to collaborate from separate locations and still maintain the same standard of design coordination and QA.
“We were really struggling to work out how we could design online.”
They found that generic PDF tools and traditional document workflows weren’t designed for architecture. Standard markup tools worked for text-heavy documents but fell short when they needed to communicate precise details to builders, sketch options, or overlay drawings.
Being a Mac-based office focused on design reviews also limited their options.
“There’s not a lot of tools available for Mac, and a lot of the software isn’t really designed for design-led practices, it’s very engineering-based.”
During lockdowns, the core problem became clear: they needed to recreate the feeling of “sitting next to each other” over a set of drawings, but online, and without drowning in printed markups.
MA+Co adopted Drawboard Projects during COVID and have since made it the primary place where drawings, markups, and issues live.
“For me Drawboard is our core resource. I want all the drawings on there so I can access, comment, and send information to staff really quickly.”
They initially brought it in as a practical way to keep working from home, but it quickly became the core environment for how projects move through the office.
Drawboard Projects now acts as Karen’s digital “stick set” for every active job. All current drawings are uploaded so she can access them instantly on her iPad, phone, or desktop, review multiple projects in quick succession, and provide clear direction to the team
“The real bonus is that I don't have to go to the server and SharePoint to access all the projects I’m across”
For the wider team, Projects is the default place to work on drawings together. Rather than dividing up PDFs and hoping nothing overlaps, everyone can open the same file, add markups, and see each other’s work in real time.
“I think one of the most useful things is the collaboration. We can all be working on a markup for a project in the same file, ticking things off as tasks so there’s no doubling up and you get a lot more efficiency.”
It also helps their flexibility; If someone has to step away, another team member can jump in and pick up exactly where they left off, with the markups and task list showing what’s been done and what’s still open.
Shop drawings are a critical part of MA+Co’s quality assurance process for their design-and-construct (D&C) projects.
Today, those packages are uploaded into Drawboard Projects, where Karen and her team run a multi-stage review:
“We get the shop drawings in, upload them, I’ll do a general overview, another staff member does a detailed review, and then we do a final review. And it’s all in the same document.”
Layers, exports, and the stamp tool help them manage feedback, approve large batches of drawings, and maintain a clear, traceable QA process at scale without passing around paper sets.
On site and in design or coordination meetings, the team uses iPads with Drawboard Projects to collaborate with builders and stakeholders, capturing decisions and feedback in real time. Builders sometimes sketch directly on the drawing with a stylus in the field.
“We can take our iPads out to site, work live with a builder looking at an updated drawing, sketch something up, and then come back and have that record. It’s all there instead of disappearing on a piece of paper.”
They also share Drawboard Projects’ free guest access with builders and other collaborators so they can access plans on their own without a subscription. But according to Karen, some builders end up getting their own subscription anyway:
“We've had builders who get a subscription so that they can take their drawings with them.”
Across these workflows, Drawboard Projects has fit how each team member prefers to work. Some type, others rely on the stylus, and many mix both depending on the task.
Standardising on Drawboard Projects has led to tangible savings and more streamlined day-to-day workflows for MA+Co.
Most markups and reviews are now digital, which has cut printing to a minimum. The studio still prints occasionally for specific client presentations, but even then, sketches are scanned back into Drawboard so the digital record stays complete.
“The amount of money we’ve saved on printing alone basically bought us an iPad a month for a year.”
Day-to-day, the office now runs in a mostly paperless way.
“At the moment we’re pretty paperless because we just don’t need it anymore. We do all our markups digitally.”
Centralising shop drawings, design markups, and issues has also improved risk management. On large multi-residential projects, they now have a clear history of what was queried, what was agreed, and when changes were made, which helps when resolving disagreements with consultants or stakeholders. The revision structure in Projects also makes it simple to step back through earlier versions when needed.
Internally, tagging issues to specific team members and anchoring conversations to drawings has reduced rework and made delegation smoother, especially when Karen is working remotely or across many projects at once.
“It gives us a lot more flexibility in managing the team. If someone has a question they can tag it to me, I can respond even if I’m not in the office, and we can keep projects moving.”
Culturally, the team sums up the impact in two words: efficient and collaborative. They feel they’d lose a lot if they had to go back to paper-based markups.
“If we had to stop using Drawboard and go back to paper, our processes would be much less streamlined.”
In the next few years, MA+Co expect housing to remain at the centre of their work, particularly affordable and social housing at a time when housing issues are increasingly urgent.
“The core of our work is housing and there’s been no point in history where housing has been so critical.”
Alongside project delivery, they’re investing more in broader contributions to the housing conversation.
“We actually want to make a meaningful commitment. We’ve started a studio at Monash looking at new housing types, and we want to layer our practice work with what’s happening at the state and government level to see how we can do housing better and make a real contribution.”
Drawboard Projects gives them a way to support that ambition without sacrificing control or flexibility on their core projects.
With a stable, collaborative environment for drawings and markups, they can continue to scale the complexity and impact of their work while keeping the studio “little big”: small, nimble, and design-led.
"I think Drawboard Projects gives us something that’s really nimble… it gives us a bit of an edge.”
We are a PDF and collaboration company. We believe that creating more effective connections between people reduces waste.
Our best work has been overtaken by busywork. That’s why we’ve created ways to help people get back to working wonders without any paper in sight.
Drawboard PDF lets you mark up and share with ease, and Drawboard Projects brings collaborative design review to architecture and engineering teams.
At Drawboard, we work our magic so our customers can get back to working theirs.
We are a PDF and collaboration company. We believe that creating more effective connections between people reduces waste.
Our best work has been overtaken by busywork. That’s why we’ve created ways to help people get back to working wonders without any paper in sight.
Drawboard PDF lets you mark up and share with ease, and Drawboard Projects brings collaborative design review to architecture and engineering teams.
At Drawboard, we work our magic so our customers can get back to working theirs.
