Architecture for the Working Mathematician

Architecture Definition is the process in systems engineering of developing an architectural structure appropriate for achieving a given set of system requirements and constraints. Last winter, I was contacted by a colleague from systems engineering interested in developing a mathematical formalism for defining architecture, classifying architectures and comparing architectures. What emerged uses a combination of model theory from logic and category theory. I will talk about this work, as well as the occasionally surreal experience of collaborating with systems engineers, whom it transpires are even more obsessed with precision of language than mathematicians and walk a line between abstract philosophy and practical engineering.