Improving the MACE architectural learning portal with practice of community knowledge generation

The paper presents an Italian research project funded by the Italian Ministry of Scientific and Technological Research (PRIN2008 - "The Italian gateway for Architectural Design, Building Technology and Construction Management Education"). The project aims at developing the MACE Portal which created an outstanding methodological framework for networking digital repositories of Architectural contents. The paper is specifically focused on empowering access to digital resources by using MACE as a starting point for the set up of a network of excellence for architecture knowledge and on offering a platform to host the communities practice and for exploiting the potential knowledge generated during the activities of architectural communities. The knowledge generated by the communities through the use of the system itself will be recorded and classified according to an indexing system that limits the semantic derive and improves the focus of searching activities.