Asymptote Architecture is an American architecture practice based in New York City, USA, with satellite offices in Dubai and Vienna, and was founded by Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture in 1989.
Lise Anne Couture (1959, Montreal, Canada) received her Master of Architecture degree in 1986 from Yale University. She has held numerous academic appointments including the Bishop Chair and Saarinen Chair at Yale University, the Muschenheim Fellowship at the University of Michigan, the Kenzo Tange Chair for architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and distinguished visiting professorships at Princeton University, the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), the University of Virginia, l’Université de Montréal, the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam, Parsons School of Design and MIT. She was the Baird Visiting Professor at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art & Planning as well as Visiting Professor at SCI-Arc.
Hani Rashid (1958, Cairo, Egypt) got his bachelor's degree in architecture from Carleton University (Canada) and received 1985 a Master of Architecture degree from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, in 1985. He held visiting professorships at several universities, including the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in Los Angeles, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam, the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and the Lund University. Since 1989, Rashid has been an Associate Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in New York, where he launched the ‘Advanced Digital Design’ (1992) and the ‘Digital Design Initiative’ (1995). In 2004, he received a professorship at the Cátedra Luis Barragán in Monterrey, Mexico and from 2006 till 2009 he was a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. In 2008, Rashid was the recipient of the Kenzo Tange Visiting Professor Chair at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
The studio received several prizes including the Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts in 2004.
Asymptote Architecture is at the forefront of technological innovation in the fields of architecture, master planning, urban design, exhibition, interiors and digital environments.
The office worked on a broad range of commissions at sites in the United States, Europe and Asia, including a 100,000-square-meter master plan in Bergamo, Italy; the Strata Tower, an innovative, forty-story residential tower in Abu Dhabi; a Monument Bridge, also in the United Arab Emirates; an Eco-Cultural Master Plan, a sustainable and cultural urban design for Baku, Azerbaijan; commercial office towers in Budapest, Hungary; and the World Business Center Solomon Tower in Busan, South Korea, a skyscraper that will be among the tallest buildings in Asia. Recently completed projects include 166 Perry Street, a high-end residential building in New York City; and the award-winning Hydra Pier in Haarlemmermeer, The Netherlands (Figure 1).
Design philosophy
Asymptote explores the possibilities to incorporate new techniques and new media into their designs. This leads to a characteristic idiom with flowing lines that are constructed of small units and bits.
Ivo_03 table (Figure 2)
Meta, a British company fathered by historic London antiques firm Mallett, commissioned a table by Asymptote as part of its inaugural collection of contemporary objects and furniture, launched in Europe during the Salone del Mobile in Milan in April 2008.
The table features slumped glass suspended across a contiguous and abstracted alloy surface of diamond-shaped facets. The table’s architecture is the result of an asymmetric metal topography of mathematically delineated folds and crevices that create a powerful and sensual curvature. The base of the table is made in Tula steel, a historic metal that has been recreated by Meta based upon the analysis of an original and rare piece of Imperial Tula steel from 1780. Using the same craftsmen responsible for restoring parts of the Kremlin Palace, the perimeter edge of the metal base is hand-etched with a subtle and sympathetic pattern of incised relief and hand-finished using traditional polishing methods to create a visually crisp surface. The undulating troughs and peaks give way to the perception of an arc when the table is viewed from the side, a purposeful refinement by Asymptote reminiscent of the accumulated outlines of the underside of a landscape. This effect serves to enhance the overall elegance and ‘lightness’ of the piece while also adding a subtly sophisticated visual balance when seen in combination with the intensity of the surface geometry (1.5 x 0.9 x 0.5 m).
References
http://openbuildings.com/buildings/hydra-pier-profile-2439
http://madebymeta.com/products/first-collection/ivo-03
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptote_Architecture
www.asymptote.net
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Anne_Couture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hani_Rashid
www.designboom.com/contemporary/asymptote
