The position of digital fabrication in architecture:

Since the 1990s, the scientific and theoretical field of digital fabrication has been influenced by an positivist determination based on a linear realism, which expresses its epistemological attitude. Without a critical encounter in the scope of epistemology, it is not possible to propose an alternative to this dominant understanding that determines the place of digital fabrication in architecture. In response to the question, "what is the alternative to the dominant understanding of digital fabrication?" and with the aim of determining the place of digital fabrication in architecture, this article has used critical discourse analysis in a qualitative framework , which consists of three parts:
- The first part, in a horizontal section of the alternative discourse, Synchronously analyzes the existing background in criticizing the dominant understanding epistemology; In a holistic approach to the current state of the field of digital fabrication, the proposals illustrate a range in redefining of digital understanding.
- The second part, in a vertical section of the alternative discourse, by criticizing the dominant method of determining digital history in architecture, diachornically refers to a part of history from the 1960s that has been omitted in conventional history; In a historical approach, the proposals of this alternative flow render an extension in the recovery of digital understanding.
- The third part compares the alternative proposals Synchronously and diachornically both resulting from two horizontal and vertical cutting of the alternative discourse body. The results of this comparison show that both parts of the discourse analysis agree on leaving the place of digital technology in the representation of architecture and entering the field of intelligent digital architecture.
Finally, the critical examination of the results of this investigation indicates the existence of an assumption that considers exiting the scope of representation in architecture to be equivalent to entering the field of intelligent digital architecture. The conclusion of this article, while determining the position of digital fabrication in architecture and also specifying fabrication knowledge in relation to this alternative discourse, raises critical questions that need to be addressed at a theoretical level. Otherwise, the results of the alternative discourse, in the absence of answers to these critical questions, will produce another type of the dominant discourse that the alternative discourse was created in response to. In this way, the proposal of new topics in this alternative discourse will be caught in a round of futility.