Using robotic sand packing as a reusable formwork for casting building concrete

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Kinetic sand has gained popularity over the years as a moldable play sand that mimics the properties of wet sand, allowing children to explore their senses, build fine motor skills and strengthen their imaginative play muscles.

A Stuckeman School architecture graduate student at Penn State has taken advantage of the same properties of the material — which is easy to squeeze, shape and mold — to develop a reusable formwork that aims to reduce waste generated during the casting of architectural concrete and cement forms, while allowing architects to create unique design opportunities.

Kieron Cook, who will graduate with a master of science in architecture with a focus in design computing in May, was recognized for his innovative use of kinetic sand by the Fox Graduate School with its Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award.

Titled “Robotic Sand Packing: A reusable formwork approach for casting,” Cook’s thesis proposes an alternative to the limited-use formworks—or molds—that are the predominant choice for forming concrete into structural shapes by using a six-axis robotic arm to shape kinetic sand and cast cement into the reusable form created. To understand the unique material behavior of the kinetic sand and evaluate it in regard to certain robotic actions, Cook developed a fabrication grammar.

“Using a ‘grammar’ to develop this research has been instrumental in allowing the material effects and behavior to be correlated to certain design parameters within the robotic toolpath programming, as each stage of the design is generatively created through the grammar,” said Cook.

Cook said there are two research objectives to be achieved with the reusable formwork methodology explored in his thesis. The first is to cast cement panels onto robotically shaped sand formworks/molds with emergent textures and patterns. The second objective is to analyze and evaluate the most effective toolpath rules for geometric accuracy in sand formworks.

“The first objective focused on using the fabrication grammar to design cement cast panels,” said Cook. “The second objective made use of 3D scanning technology to assess the behavior of kinetic sand as a formwork material.”

A native of Hanover, New Hampshire, Cook moved to the suburbs of Philadelphia during high school. It was there that an architecture course piqued his interest in design after originally contemplating a career in engineering. He came to Penn State to pursue architecture and learn more about how buildings function and are constructed. During his fourth year he was accepted into the integrated undergraduate-graduate architecture program, which allowed him to pursue earning both his bachelor of architecture and master’s degree in six years.

“The M.S. in Architecture degree with a focus in design computing helps to showcase my skills as a computational designer in addition to the typical architectural skills I developed in the undergraduate architecture program here at Penn State,” said Cook, who is affiliated with the Form and Matter (ForMat) Lab in the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing.

Benay Gürsoy, assistant professor of architecture and director of the ForMat Lab, has known Cook since his freshman year and said it has been a joy to see him evolve into the researcher that he has become.

“Kieron is very self-driven, more than a typical M.S. student would be,” said Gürsoy, who is also Cook’s thesis adviser. “He was eager to explore and experiment. It was always a great pleasure to work with him.”

During the early stages of his research and the development of his methodology, Cook presented a paper he co-wrote with Gürsoy at the international Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe) conference 2024 in September in Cyprus.

“It was an incredibly helpful experience, as I was able to meet and interact with a ton of really amazing researchers,” said Cook about the experience. “I had many interactions and discussions with people that were helpful for developing my thesis, and it also helped me gain confidence in my work as I received overwhelmingly positive feedback.”

Cook is currently working on a paper for the eCAADe 2025 conference, which will be held in September 2025 in Ankara, Turkey. He will also attend the Computer Aided Architectural Design (CAAD) Futures 2025 conference at the University of Hong Kong in July 2025 to present his paper that has already been accepted and will be published as a book chapter as part of this conference proceedings.

“All these conferences at which Kieron is presenting show the relevance and quality of his work as these are major conferences in the field of design computation,” said Gürsoy.

Cook, who successfully defended his thesis on March 20, accepted a job offer from IPS – Integrated Project Services, a design-build firm specializing in the life sciences sector in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. He plans on pursuing his professional licensure as an architect “as soon as possible” and he credits Penn State for his success.

“Without the architecture program at Penn State I would not be the designer I am today,” he said. “Through the incredible studio culture here at Stuckeman, I was able to learn how to collaboratively design and work with other people. This environment prepared me to be a part of the design team at IPS, a firm that emphasizes learning from each other every day, and always pushing to become the best designers we can be.”