The Quest for the Holy Grail - Holistic Collaborative Design. How to enhance communications among tools of semantic different level in a cross-culture design.

Architectural design, due to phenomena such as globalisation of the construction process, delocalisation of professional and industrial activities, spread of new construction materials and components, and the challenges of environmental sustainability, has become so comlex that traditional ways of managing the process are no longer sufficient. What is more, architectural works are required to be ever more performing and integrated - holistic. The paradigm of collaborative design is gaining ground as a way of dealing with these problems. Various process/product models have been proposed over the years, making more or less use of advanced tools. This study proposes a model in which operators from various cultural contexts are each supported by Intelligent Assistants (Agents). The model simulates the the architectural design process to the best professional practice. Exchange of information and knowledge between the oeprators is essential to optimising the design process. From this follows the need to interface not just data, but also meanings. This article shows how to improve communications between different applications, used by different operators, so as to integrate information and knowledge, whether formalised or not, in a project managed collaboratively with XML.