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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About the Author
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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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This book is exceptional.Well thought and presented skillfully. It really engaged with me to the extent that I couldnt put the thing down. It has exceptional photos of the practices models...which are just stunning, and the drawings are a pole to mark yourself by. I would recommend this to any budding architecture student as a must read. You just cant afford to miss out!
By tallmanbaby
TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
This monograph is about the Asymptote architectural practice, which is a partnership between the monograph authors, Hani Rasid, and Lise Anne Couture. The book was published in 2002, and although they were regulars at the Venice Biennale and had a substantial academic record the built projects in the book are fairly modest, fancy tents, if you want to be disparaging, along with plenty of conceptual stuff and virtual environments.
The aesthetic is very much the lurid computer generated look of Wired. The strange red shape on the cover is apparently "Computer generated studies of the tectonics of movement manifest through automotive styling and modelling. The M.Scapes were produced with modelling software to create new assemblies that addressed the formal aesthetics of movement and speed reinterpreted as static artefacts."
In fairness, at points the text is more lucid and thought provoking, particularly where someone else makes an attempt to cut through their verbiage. In fairness they have also gone on to actually build some real buildings, better covered in their recent book Actualizations, including an award winning design hotel. Their style is a swooping computer generated array of shapes, with the digital never terribly far away. Somewhere between Zaha Hadid and Renzo Piano.
Hopefully there is enough here to indicate whether this book is your sort of thing, for my taste it would have benefitted from a tough editor to trim out the verbiage and self promotion and cut back to the core messages, because deep down they do actually seem to have something to say.
The aesthetic is very much the lurid computer generated look of Wired. The strange red shape on the cover is apparently "Computer generated studies of the tectonics of movement manifest through automotive styling and modelling. The M.Scapes were produced with modelling software to create new assemblies that addressed the formal aesthetics of movement and speed reinterpreted as static artefacts."
In fairness, at points the text is more lucid and thought provoking, particularly where someone else makes an attempt to cut through their verbiage. In fairness they have also gone on to actually build some real buildings, better covered in their recent book Actualizations, including an award winning design hotel. Their style is a swooping computer generated array of shapes, with the digital never terribly far away. Somewhere between Zaha Hadid and Renzo Piano.
Hopefully there is enough here to indicate whether this book is your sort of thing, for my taste it would have benefitted from a tough editor to trim out the verbiage and self promotion and cut back to the core messages, because deep down they do actually seem to have something to say.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.0 out of 5 stars
2 reviews
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Flux, Asymptote's early work
10 Jun 2010
By Castelli
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
An important first monograph by Asymptote. Many of the ideas that Asymptote is working with toady in manifesting their buildings and other work had originated in the early period covered in Flux.
8 of 19 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Prentious & Predictable
12 May 2004
By A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Don't be fooled by Rashid and Couture's slick graphics. Their oeuvre has more to do with the capabilities of computer graphics programs than it does with quality architectural spaces. And the writing is predicatable archi-speak blather carefully crafted to sound more important and serious than it is. Asymptote are one of the many anti-architecture, anti-humanist firms walking the hackneyed architectural walk these days. From the prentious table of contents to the predicatable collage graphics, this book is as commonplace as Starbucks, and offers about as much to urban design today. Give it a miss.
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