Architect Oryzus - three pillars of architecture

Just read a very very interesting article - The Social/Psychological Side of Software Architecture (my talk at reboot7) (http://tesugen.com/archives/05/06/reboot7-talk). This article brings some more clarity on oryzus part of architect's role.

The author argues, there are three pillars of architecture,

1. Technology
2. Social
3. Psychological

The technology aspect is about describing the internal structure of software system.

The social properties of architecture are about making everybody get the same image of the architecture. Somewhere, filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola has said that the difference between a good and a bad movie, is getting everyone involved in making the same movie. Social aspects deal with memorability of how things work.

The psychological pillar is closely related to the social one. Where the social pillar of software architecture concerns architectures evoking similarly-organized mental pictures, the psychological pillar concerns architectures that stick in the minds of the individual team members. What becomes important is the process of getting to architecture that just the goal :architecture.


It is also interesting to know that buildings take on shape after they are built.

‘Porches fill in by stages, not all at once you know.’ The architect was responding to a talk I gave at a builder’s conference. ‘The family puts screens on the porch one summer because of the bugs. Then they see they could glass it in and make it part of the house. But it’s cold, so they add a duct from the furnace and some insulation, and now they realize they have to beef up the foundation and the roof. It happens that way because they can always visualize the next stage based on what’s already there.’

Author also talks of user and UI being an important part of architecture. In most of the definitions of architecture user word doesn't appear.