The Digital Shape Workbench (DSW) is a common infrastructure for integrating, combining, adapting, enhancing existing and new software tools and shape databases. A direct benefit of the DSW is to speed-up research in digital shapes: each new research started in this field is slowed down by the need to master or integrate many different theoretical and technological aspects. The DSW acts as an e-Science framework in terms of an operational, large-scale, distributed and web based software system. The DSW involves the construction of the Shape Repository, the Tool Repository and the Ontology and Metadata Repository, together with an advanced Search Framework.