A characterization of required functionality and quality attributes obtained through “chunking,” organizing, annotating, structuring, or formalizing the requirements (functional and non-functional) to facilitate further refinement and reasoning about the requirements as well as (possibly, initial) solution exploration, definition, and evaluation. (See also “architecture,” “functional architecture,” and “quality attribute.”)
As technical solution processes progress, this characterization can be further evolved into a description of the architecture versus simply helping scope and guide its development, depending on the engineering processes used; requirements specification and architectural languages used; and the tools and the environment used for product or service system development.