Previous adaptive computing efforts have concentrated on components at the chip or board level. The SLAAC architecture provides a system-level reference architecture that is an open standard for the benefit of the adaptive computing community in order to facilitate collaboration among researchers and accelerate the transition of these technologies from the lab to the field. The SLAAC reference architecture provides a scalable, distributed, network-based hardware and software environment. This common framework will allow common tools to be developed, common application interfaces to be used, and will provide a vehicle for deploying novel adaptive computing systems into the community. This extended abstract presents the hardware organization and the layers of the software runtime system of the SLAAC architecture.