Architectural patterns are often applied in combination with related patterns within software architectures.The relationships among architectural patterns must be considered when applying a combination of patternsinto a system; for example the way the Model-View-Controller uses the Observer pattern to implement thechange propagation mechanism needs to be carefully designed. However, effective integration of architec-tural patterns within software architectures remains a challenging task. This is because the integration of anytwo architectural patterns can take several forms. Furthermore, existing pattern languages define generic andabstract relationships between architectural patterns without going into detail about associations among theparticipants of architectural patterns. In this paper, we propose to address the pattern integration issue bydiscovering and defining a set of pattern participants relationships that serve the purpose of effectively inte-grating architectural patterns. Our findings are validated through a controlled experiment, which providessignificant evidence that the proposed relationships support inexperienced designers in integrating patterns.

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