In this paper we describe a support environment for architectural level design exploration and rapid prototyping of telecommunication systems. DASE is a design analysis and synthesis environment that accepts design descriptions in a Design Specification Language (DSL) and evolves it into a hardware and software system. Design space exploration is achieved through selections from pre-defined, generic, DSL library modules as templates. The design is validated by simulations. Yet at another level DASE supports behavioral synthesis by generating corresponding VHDL output. While only one case study is presented here, a table is given depicting a range of other studies carried out. A library supported environment can be reconfigured by an appropriate substitution of its library to cater to a different end-application. To that extent DASE is a domain independent framework.