Recently I had the pleasure of talking to Gerd Schmid and Bernd Stimpfle, the managing directors of form TL. form TL is a structural engineering consultancy located in Radolfzell in the south of Germany on the west end of Lake Constance. The firm is composed of 11 structural engineers, one architect (Schmid), a draftsman and an office manager. Its portfolio is focused on the realization of imaginative forms and leading-edge applications for membrane and film structures.rnMark Zeh: The area around Lake Constance seems to be a hotbed of companies involved in membrane and tension architecture. Tell us a bit about the background of form TL.rnGerd Schmid: For me, it began when I was finishing my involvement with the firm SIB Stromeyer Ingenieurbau in Konstanz. I had been working with them for about two years on a project funded by the German government, to look into applications of lightweight structures, and two further years as assistant to Friedemann Kugel. This had been a fantastic learning experience, but their business focus began to shift away from membrane structures when Roeder bought them.
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