Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture, founders and principals of Asymptote Architecture, are leading architectural practitioners of their generation whose innovative work and academic contributions have received international recognition.
Since Asymptote’s founding in 1989, the firm has been at the forefront of technological innovation in the field of architecture and design and garnered praise for visionary building designs, master plans, art installations, exhibition and product design and digital environments.
Asymptote is currently working 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; two 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 at 560m. Also in progress are the Penang Global City Center (PGCC), a one-million-square-meter cultural, hotel and performing arts complex in Penang, Malaysia and two contemporary art pavilions commissioned by The Guggenheim Foundation for the Cultural District of Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Other recent competition proposals from Asymptote include a large-scale master plan and landmark tower design for the Yongsan International Business District in Seoul, South Korea; the winning entry for an iconic, forty-story corporate headquarters in Tbilisi, Georgia; a design for the Dubai International Financial Center, a 146-story building that punctuates that city’s skyline; an exhibition and music hall in Vitoria, Spain; and a dramatic design for a new Guggenheim Museum in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Projects designed by Asymptote now under construction include 166 Perry Street, a high-end residential building in New York City, and two projects in Abu Dhabi: the Strata Tower, an innovative, forty-story residential tower, and a luxury hotel adjacent to the new Formula 1 racetrack. Completed projects in recent years include the award-winning HydraPier Pavilion in Haarlemmermeer, The Netherlands; the Guggenheim Virtual Museum; the New York Stock Exchange Advanced Trading Floor and the design and creation of new brand identities for clients such as BMW and Alessi.
For nearly two decades Asymptote has also produced experimental art installations and exhibition design work involving multi-media technologies for venues such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City; DOCUMENTA XI in Kassel, Germany; the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt and the Ministry of Public Works in Madrid. In 2000 Hani Rashid co-represented the United States at the Seventh Venice Architecture Biennale, and in 2004 Rashid and Couture were chosen as the design architects for Metamorph, the Ninth Venice Architecture Biennale.
All of Asymptote's work has been widely published and is included in various private and public collections including The Museum Of Modern Art in New York, the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Frac Centre in Orléans, France. In 2004 Rashid and Couture were presented with the coveted Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts in recognition of exceptional contributions to the progress and merging of art and architecture.