What is Architecture?

Webster's dictionary gives following definitions for architecture:

1. The art or practice of designing and building structures and especially habitable ones
2. Formation or construction as (or as if as) the result of a conscious act
3. Architectural product or work
4. A method or style of building

For this discussion the definition of greatest interest is the first, as it deals with the methods and tools of the discipline of being an architect.

Consider the implications of this:

• An architecture embodies information about how the components of interest interact with each other. This means that architecture specifically omits content information about components that does not pertain to their interaction on the context being considered.

• Architectures may be comprised of more than one structure, but no one view holds the irrefutable claim to be the architecture. By intention, the definition does not specify what architectural components and relationships are.

• The definition implies that everything having parts has an architecture, because everything can be shown to be composed of components and relations among them.  

• The behaviour of each component of interest in the context of a structure is part of the architecture, insofar as that behaviour can be observed or discerned from the point of view of another component. This behaviour is what allows components to interact with each other, which is clearly part of the architecture.

Why "do" Architecture?

If architecture is design with vision we then have to think about what objects would look like without addressing the complexity of the interaction of the components through making such an investment. How well would a modern building operate if there were no vision as to how the parts would interoperate? Such a building  would likely not serve its intended purpose, be expensive to operate and probably not be particularly habitable. Consider also the Mary Rose.  Once the pride of the English navy, by the time she sunk off Portsmouth harbour in 1545, the Mary Rose was obsolete: cumbersome, vulnerable to attack and ill-equipped for 16th century warfare. The reason she sank was because of ad hoc changes that had modified here beyond her intended purpose. The result was the death of most of the crew, loss of the ship and operationally, increased the risk of the loss of a critical battle for Henry VIII. 

Today no one would think of buying or using a car, a boat, an airplane, a house, a building of any kind, or even a road that had not be subject to the application of clear design principles and validated as appropriate for the intended purpose. At the same time organizations and systems are today most typically not designed and maintained with any such forethought and this is usually not questioned. Clearly then, there is a need to develop Enterprise Architecture

Why is architecture not being done? 

One opinion

There are indications that some organizations have recognized the significance of an architecture approach and have adopted the necessary culture, processes and controls to achieve its benefits. Unfortunately it seems that concurrent with an organization's discovery of the value of architecture it recognizes the strategic/competitive value and no longer discusses either the investment requirements or turns because of the perceived competitive significance, thus denying other organizations the case studies to apply to their own circumstance.

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