In the past few years, software applications have increased in complexity and in stakeholders' expectations principally due to new Internet-centric application areas, such as e-business, web services, ubiquitous computing, and peer-to-peer networks. Multi-agent systems (MAS) architectures have gained popularity for developing such software. Unfortunately, despite considerable work in software architecture during the past decade, few research efforts have aimed at truly defining frameworks for agent-based architectural design. Considering that MAS architecture is conceived as a society of software agents, this article overviews a social-driven design approach dedicated to build up agent-based systems. The approach is based on organizational structures and social patterns to define agent architectures notably in the context of e-business system design.