The following diagram provides a conceptual view of the VA Smalltalk architecture. The lowest level represents the specific target platform. The target platform consists of a particular hardware platform and operating system. The operating system might have built-in capabilities for graphical user interfaces, or it might be augmented by support packages such as OSF/Motif and the X Window System.

VA Smalltalk provides the virtual machine layer implemented for the target platform. VA Smalltalk is built on the native capabilities of the platform, together with additional platform-specific classes and methods developed in order to support the full VA Smalltalk API.

Developers working in the VA Smalltalk environment have the capabilities of all layers at their disposal to use as the needs of the product and organization dictate. Of course, developers sacrifice portability when they make use of the layers below the common classes and methods. However, even in such cases, they can use the development environment to identify and control non-portable parts of the application.