While WICSA is mainly concerned with software architecture, including architecture description and documentation, variability in architecture, architectures for software product lines, CBSE is concerned with component-based software development, mainly component models, techniques, and supporting tools. In the context of software architecture, reference architecture refers to a special type of software architecture, which contains the essence of the software architectures of software systems of a given application domain. Reference architectures have been widely explored as a basis for development, standardization, and evolution of software systems. They can also be used as a basis for building product line architectures in the context of software product line engineering. Component-based techniques for software development create software architectures alongside software systems. So it would seem that such techniques, when based on suitable component models, may be able to enhance the practical significance of reference architectures, by providing techniques for constructing reference architectures, or their key elements, as software artefacts. The main goal of CobRA 2015 is to bring together researchers and practitioners from both WICSA and CBSE to examine and discuss this challenge and related issues, with a view to identifying directions for future research.