Software architecture plays an important role in facilitating the maintenance of a software system. Over the past two decades, software architecture research has yielded many different tools and techniques for understanding and maintaining the architectures of large, complex software systems. However, empirical research and technology transfer are impeded by myriad disjoint research and development environments, lack of a shared infrastructure, high initial costs associated with developing robust tools, and a lack of datasets needed to conduct empirical research in this domain.

The workshop gathers researchers and practitioners from two areas—software architecture and empirical software engineering—to explore the issues at the intersection of these areas and identify plausible solutions that jointly move both areas forward. The overall objective of the workshop is to collaboratively elicit requirements, propose a design for, and determine the foundation of potential infrastructures and instruments that would support empirical research in the domain of architecture-based software development and maintenance.