Architectural configuration

Architectural Configuration was the ability a TARDIS had to move rooms around and delete rooms as if it were a computer. If a TARDIS was sluggish, a room could be jettisoned (or "deleted").

Deletion also could be used to provide momentum should a TARDIS need to escape a threat. The number of rooms that were required to be deleted varied depending on the situation. The danger in Architectural Configuration was that there was a chance the console room could be deleted. (TV: Castrovalva) There was, however, a failsafe that kept the TARDIS from erasing itself, possibly as a whole. (PROSE: Falls the Shadow)

During his exile on Earth, the Third Doctor altered the TARDIS' Architectural Configuration software to relocate the console outside the ship (as it was too big to go through the doors), allowing him to work on it in his lab. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy, TV: The Ambassadors of Death, Inferno, Day of the Daleks)

The Fourth Doctor jettisoned Romana II's room after she left when the TARDIS wouldn't dematerialise. (TV: Logopolis) In another incarnation, 25% of the TARDIS was jettisoned to allow the TARDIS to escape from Event One. In the process, the Zero Room was jettisoned. (TV: Castrovalva)

When the TARDIS was reconfigured into a multi-dimensional city, the Seventh Doctor accessed Architectural Configuration to trap the Process. He later used it to create a spiral staircase to the Process's Tower. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)

The Eleventh Doctor used Architectural Configuration to delete TARDIS rooms and use them as extra power to move through the bubble universe rift. On the return trip, House used this function to delete an archived control room in an attempt to kill Idris, the Doctor, Amy, and Rory. However, the TARDIS's delete function included a failsafe that deposited any living objects inside of the main control room, saving them. (TV: The Doctor's Wife)

Gregor Van Baalen became interested in the architectural reconfiguration system when his scanner described its value as more than the sum of any currency. The TARDIS turned a door into a wall, and its corridors into a labyrinth designed to trap him when he stole a part of the system. (TV: Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS)


 * Whatever direct relation between architectural configuration and the architectural reconfiguration system, if one was part of the other or enabled it, is unknown.