We have recently seen a renewal of interest in the field of software architectures. This has happened within the object-oriented community - with the emergenceofframe works and patterns- but also within a wider context of software engineering- with the concepts of components and component-based development. Work is now pro ceeding apace with new developments coming very rapidly. In such an environment it is easy to lose some important ideas; the need for a reflective view on what will be the lasting developments led us to organise a two day seminar in the Open University as a checkpoint in...