What is Architecture?

Michael Platt tries to define architecture. He plays around with a number of definitions and then as all good architects would he comes up with his own .

“Architecture is the use of abstractions and models to simplify and communicate complex structures and processes to improve understanding and forecasting.”

In my opinion defining architecture is a bit like trying to define cricket to an American. You have to experience it to understand it, and even then it requires some explanation. An American will try to relate cricket to baseball because they think they are similar, but actually they are so dissimilar that the relationship aids confusion rather than understanding. People try to relate IT Architecture to building architecture which actually drives more misunderstand than understanding, in my opinion.

As for Michael’s definition, I quite like it, I think though that it misses a significant element. Architecture is about abstraction and simplification because it is about understanding something so that the likelihood of what gets delivered is what’s required without having to deliver it first. In other words it’s about incremental and iterative agreement on the answer.

Tags: Architecture