Journal Article

·2026 OPEN ACCESS

From Control to Contingency: Tolerance as a Generator of Digital Space

Ipek Kuran , Umut Burcu Tasa Yurtsever YTU

Journal of Computational Design

Abstract

This study repositions the concept of tolerance in digital space production not only as a technical flexibility but also as an ontological and algorithmic openness. In contrast to representational, form-centered and deterministic design approaches, it advocates an understanding of space established through interaction, process and difference. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze’s idea of becoming and difference and Luciana Parisi’s computational aesthetic approach, the research conceptualizes digital space not as a fixed structure but as a constantly emerging area of relationality. In this context, tolerance is not considered as an error or deviation but as a productive area of uncertainty inherent in the evolutionary nature of digital systems.Experiments conducted within the framework of agent-based systems reveal how tolerance operates on behavioral, formal and temporal planes. In these systems, where parameters are defined not with definite values but with intervals, space emerges not from form but from interaction. The study proposes a new architectural way of thinking that distances digital design from certainty and approaches uncertainty with openness. As a result, tolerance is considered not only as a technical aspect but also as an ethical and creative design principle in digital architecture.

Keywords

Flexibility (engineering) Space (punctuation) Process (computing) Control (management) Digital control Generator (circuit theory) Engineering design process Action (physics) Computer science

Subject Areas

Architecture and Computational Design ·Architecture ·Physical Sciences
Cybernetics and Technology in Society ·History and Philosophy of Science ·Social Sciences
Digital Media and Philosophy ·Computer Science Applications ·Physical Sciences