How do system architectures affect software requirements?

While much research attention has been paid to transitioning from requirements to software architectures, relatively little attention has been paid to how new requirements are affected by an existing system architecture. Specifically, no scientific studies have been conducted on how a system's architecture affects software requirements; in particular, the ldquocharacteristicsrdquo of newly elicited requirements gathered in the presence of an existing architecture. This paper describes emerging results from an exploratory controlled study investigating such requirements characteristics.