ISBN: 9780714841724    Publisher: Phaidon Press Ltd Year of publishing: 2002     Format:  Hardback No of Pages: 240        

In mathematical terms, the word "asymptote" is defined as a line that a given curve gets closer and closer to, but never touches, as it gets further from the origin towards infinity. In architectural terms, Asymptote is the Manhattan-based architectural design and research practice established by Lisa Anne Couture abd Hani Rashid in 1989. Rashid and Couture's work is intriguing because it draws inspiration from a wide variety of sources not traditionally associated with architecture - among them the design of airline interiors, sporting equipment and organic systems like seashells and honeycombs; and various means of communicating and disseminating information. Their projects are concerned as much with light, speed and traversing virtual boundaries as with "real-world" geometires and building systems. Rashid is one of the founding instructors in the "paperless studio" curriculum at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, a programme of study that emphasizes designing directly via computers and communications networks and encourages students to pursue investigations into the evolving possibilies of digital design and "placeless" environments.
Echoing Asymptote's approach, this text presents a seamless trajectory of projects organized in a non-linear fashion and illustrated with installation photographs, collaged photographs and computer-generated diagrams and environments, all in colour. Photographs of an installation might be followed by a spread of Asymptote's "scapes" - computer diagrams morphed into a variety of potential body forms or structures - followed in turn by images of a virtual environment. The projects follow one another in a panoramic, filmstrip fashion and are interspersed with descriptive text and the speculative writing that Asymptote is known for. This text is intended to be explored at random, without strict beginning or end.
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Lise Anne Couture received a Master of Architecture degree from Yale University in 1986. She has held academic appointments at several institutions, including the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; the Stadelschule in Frankfurt; Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and the University of Montreal. She is currently on the faculty of the Department of Architecture at Parsons School of Design and of Columbia University, both in New York City. Hani Rashid received his Master of Architecture degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. He has taught at a variety of schools, including the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen, the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam, the Technical University in Vienna, Lund University in Sweden, and Harvard University. He is currently Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning at Columbia University in New York. Author's Residence: New York, New York
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