Researchers of various disciplines joined forces in 2009 to initiate a related priority program called 1542, which received a positive vote from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and was subsequently launched. Priority program 1542 currently includes work on 17 different sub-projects that apply the 'form follows force' principle. The wide array of associated topics was divided into five work groups that partially overlap and complement each other. The work groups primarily dealing with structural components are conceiving new approaches to designing bar-shaped, planar or curvilinear components. Research being conducted for linear components includes work on optimizing the shape of columns used in conventional building construction according to force flow, hollow columns with a bamboo-like structure and pressure and tension rod for spatial framework.