This publication concerns approaches for establishing the overall instrumentation and control (I&C) architecture of a nuclear power plant. It describes the characteristics and content of general I&C architectures, presents architectural principles and addresses the limitation of the potential effects of postulated common cause failures. It introduces an architectural development process and discusses technical considerations for the design. The publication emphasizes safety aspects and addresses the defence in depth concept, but also includes consideration of plant availability, operability and security. It recognizes the potential for adverse effects of I&C failures on plant availability and operability that may arise from increased architectural complexity, and describes the optimization of I&C functionality and features that need to be implemented.