ForMat (Form and Matter) Lab is a design research lab at Penn State’s Stuckeman School, housed within the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing. Founded in 2019 by Associate Professor Benay Gürsoy, the lab integrates education, design, and fabrication. ForMat Lab investigates the dynamic interplay among form, matter, fabrication, and performance, emphasizing material engagement as central to design.

Research efforts focus on adaptive robotic fabrication and sustainable biofabrication, with particular expertise in mycelium-based composites cultivated from agricultural and mushroom-farming byproducts.

Collaborating with mycologists, biologists, ecologists, and engineers, the lab advances interdisciplinary approaches to building materials and design methods.

ForMat Lab members who contributed to the Code & Craft exhibition are (in alphabetical order):

Aisa Shams
Alale Mohseni
Alime Şanlı
Mijin Kim

ForMat Lab director:
Benay Gürsoy

ForMat Lab positions making not as a technical afterthought but as a creative, material-driven process that generates innovation through uncertainty and discovery.