An internationally acclaimed practice operating at the intersection of architecture, technology, and digital culture.

Founded by Hani Rashid in Milan in 1988 and established in New York with Lise Anne Couture in 1989, Asymptote Architecture has pursued a singular vision: architecture as a medium that negotiates between the virtual and the physical, the speculative and the built. From large-scale urban interventions to immersive digital environments, the work challenges conventional boundaries.

35+ Years
164+ Projects
6 Continents
21 Disciplines
Studio Asymptote Asymptote Architecture
1988
1989
1994
1996
1997
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2009
2011
2012
2015
2019
2020
2023
2024
2026

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2026 Project

First Hotel in Europe — SO/ Budapest Opens on the Danube

Opening of the SO/ Budapest Hotel on the Pest bank of the Danube — Asymptote's design for the comprehensive repositioning of a landmark 350-room hotel overlooking the Chain Bridge and Buda Castle. Operated by Ennismore under the SO/ Hotels & Resorts brand, the project marks the firm's first completed hospitality project in Europe and extends Asymptote's hotel design work that began with the Yas Marina Hotel.

View Project → SO/ Budapest Hotel overlooking the Danube and Chain Bridge
2024 Award

Inducted into the National Academy of Design

Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture are elected as National Academicians in the 2024 class of the National Academy of Design — the United States' oldest artist-run institution, founded in 1825. Elected among 28 artists and architects recognized for bold and visionary contributions to contemporary art and architecture, membership places Asymptote's founders within a lineage stretching from Samuel F.B. Morse and Thomas Cole to Jasper Johns and Frank Gehry.

2023 Milestone

Muro Archive Established

The studio establishes Muro, a dedicated physical archive in Germantown, New York — preserving three decades of models, drawings, digital artifacts, and documents from the practice.

Muro archive building in Germantown, New York
2020 Project

Pinarello Commissions New Global HQ — Treviso, Italy

Asymptote is commissioned to design the new global headquarters and factory for Cicli Pinarello in Treviso, Italy — the legendary cycling brand behind more Tour de France victories than any other manufacturer. The campus integrates manufacturing, a heritage museum, cycling experience center, and corporate offices within a sweeping architectural form inspired by the aerodynamics and precision of competitive cycling.

View Project → Cicli Pinarello Factory and Headquarters in Treviso
2019 Exhibition

40,000 Visitors — Audi e-tron Installation, Salone del Mobile

Asymptote designs the Audi e-tron immersive installation for Audi at Milan's Salone del Mobile — a 3,000 square meter experiential environment that attracted over 40,000 visitors during design week. Featuring a live performance by Ludovico Einaudi within the installation, the project demonstrated the studio's capacity to merge physical architecture with digital interaction, brand storytelling, and public spectacle at a global scale.

View Project → Audi immersive installation at Salone del Mobile, Milan
2015 Academic

Lise Anne Couture Appointed Professor in Practice, Columbia GSAPP

Lise Anne Couture is appointed Professor in Practice at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) — continuing the studio's deep engagement with architectural education that began with the Paperless Design Studios in 1994. Her appointment follows visiting positions at Yale, Harvard GSD (Kenzo Tange Chair), MIT, Cornell (Baird Chair), and SCI-Arc, bringing extensive pedagogical experience to the role.

2012 Project

First Completed Building in Asia — ARC River Culture Center, Daegu

Asymptote's first completed building in Asia — the ARC River Culture Multimedia Museum opens in Daegu, South Korea. An undulating form bridging landscape and architecture along the Geumho River, the ARC houses multimedia galleries, performance space, and public programs. The project's fluid relationship between building and landscape established a model that would inform the studio's subsequent work across Asia.

View Project → ARC River Culture Multimedia Museum in Daegu, South Korea
2011 Academic

Hani Rashid Appointed Professor, Angewandte Vienna

Hani Rashid is appointed Professor and Head of Studio at the Institute of Architecture, University of Applied Arts Vienna (Die Angewandte) — establishing the Deep Futures Lab, a research studio exploring the intersections of architecture, technology, and speculative urbanism.

2009 Project

First Major Building in the Middle East — Yas Marina Hotel, Abu Dhabi

Asymptote's first major building commission in the Middle East — the Yas Marina Hotel opens on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi. The 499-room hotel, with its 217-meter LED-clad gridshell canopy spanning both land and water over the Formula 1 Yas Marina Circuit, becomes one of the most recognized buildings in the world and a symbol of Abu Dhabi's global ambitions. The project goes on to receive more than ten major international awards including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture long list, the World Architecture Festival Hotel of the Year, and the Middle East Architect Building of the Year.

View Project → Yas Marina Hotel with LED gridshell over the Formula 1 circuit
2005 Academic

Hani Rashid Appointed to the Aga Khan Award for Architecture Steering Committee

Hani Rashid is appointed to the Steering Committee of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the 2005–2007 cycle — the world's largest architecture prize, with a $500,000 award. Rashid serves alongside His Highness the Aga Khan, Jacques Herzog, Glenn Lowry, Mohsen Mostafavi, Farshid Moussavi, and Billie Tsien — contributing to the strategic direction and jury process of an award that champions architecture serving communities across the Muslim world.

2004 Publication

First Monograph Published — Flux by Phaidon Press

Publication of Flux by Phaidon Press — the first comprehensive Asymptote monograph. Published by one of the world's most respected architecture publishers, the book documents fifteen years of the studio's investigations into parametric design, virtual environments, and the evolving language of contemporary architecture, and establishes a critical reference for the practice's body of work.

2004 Exhibition

Designing the Venice Biennale Itself — Metamorph

Asymptote is commissioned by director Kurt W. Forster to design the complete exhibition architecture for the 9th International Architecture Biennale in Venice — a singular appointment making the practice responsible for shaping the spatial experience of the world's most important architecture exhibition. The scope encompassed the transformation of 7,500 square meters within the Corderie dell'Arsenale, a large-scale architectural intervention in the historic Giardini, the event's brand identity, the exhibition catalog, and contributions to the curatorial strategy for the Metamorph exhibition. No architecture firm before or since has been entrusted with this level of authorship over the Biennale itself.

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2003 Exhibition

Seminal Exhibition — Non Standard Architectures, Centre Pompidou

Asymptote is featured in the seminal exhibition Non Standard Architectures at Centre Pompidou, Paris — one of twelve international practices invited by curator Frédéric Migayrou. The landmark show was among the first major museum exhibitions to argue that computational tools and digital fabrication were fundamentally reshaping architectural form and production, positioning Asymptote within a defining moment for the discipline.

View Project → Non Standard Architectures exhibition at Centre Pompidou, Paris
2002 Award

Awarded the Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts

Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture are awarded the Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts in Vienna — the field's preeminent recognition of work at the boundary of art and architecture. The biennial prize, established by the Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation, honors practitioners whose work embodies Kiesler's vision of the "Endless" integration of art, architecture, and environment. Asymptote joins a lineage of laureates that includes Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, and Coop Himmelb(l)au.

2002 Exhibition

Only Architects Invited to Documenta XI

Asymptote is invited to participate in Documenta XI in Kassel, Germany — the only architecture firm among 117 participating artists in one of the world's most prestigious contemporary art exhibitions. Curated by Okwui Enwezor, the exhibition placed Asymptote's immersive Fluxspace 3.0 installation alongside works by major contemporary artists, affirming the practice's position at the boundary of art and architecture.

2002 Project

First International Competition Win Built — HydraPier Pavilion

Asymptote's first international competition win realized as a built work — the HydraPier Pavilion in Haarlemmermeer, Netherlands. One of the first structures in the world designed entirely using parametric and computer-aided design tools from the onset, the pavilion established Asymptote as a practice capable of translating digital experimentation into physically ambitious architecture.

View Project → HydraPier Pavilion projecting over water in Haarlemmermeer, Netherlands
2001 Milestone

Asymptote Architecture Established

Upon receiving their first building commission — the HydraPier Pavilion — the studio pivots from Studio Asymptote to Asymptote Architecture, choosing the year 2001 as a deliberate nod to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick's work had been a profound influence on the studio's experimental investigations into virtual reality, cinematic space, and spatial installations.

Studio Asymptote
2000 Exhibition

Hani Rashid Co-Represents the USA — Venice Biennale

Hani Rashid co-curates the American Pavilion at the 7th Venice Architecture Biennale with Greg Lynn, under U.S. Commissioner Max Hollein. Rashid leads Columbia GSAPP students in "Augmented Architecture" — a four-week live workshop producing three large-scale digital installations with IBM sponsorship, exploring interactivity, real-time data, and the dissolution of static architectural form. The exhibition, titled Architectural Laboratories, is one of the earliest demonstrations that computation is not merely a tool for architecture but a medium for it.

View Project → The full group of participants in front of the U.S. Pavilion at the 7th Venice Architecture Biennale — Columbia GSAPP and UCLA students with Hani Rashid and Greg Lynn, beneath the ARCH LAB exhibition banners
1999 Project

The World's First Virtual Museum — Guggenheim

Commissioned by Thomas Krens and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Asymptote designs the world's first virtual museum — a navigable three-dimensional environment for the internet that redefined the relationship between architecture and digital space. The project was widely exhibited internationally and entered the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

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1999 Project

First Design Commission in NYC — NYSE Advanced Trading Floor

Asymptote's first design commission in New York City — the Advanced Trading Floor and Three Dimensional Trading Floor for the New York Stock Exchange. A pioneering fusion of physical architecture and virtual reality, the project introduced real-time data visualization environments into the heart of global finance. The command center later played a critical role in testing systems for the market reopening after September 11, 2001.

View Project → NYSE 3DTF graphic media wall designed by Hani Rashid
1999 Award

Recognized by the Architectural League — Emerging Voices

Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture are selected for the Architectural League of New York's prestigious Emerging Voices program — recognizing the practice's pioneering work at the intersection of architecture, digital media, and virtual space. The distinction, awarded annually to a small number of firms with the potential to influence the discipline, placed Asymptote among a lineage that includes Diller + Scofidio, Morphosis, and Billie Tsien & Tod Williams.

1997 Project

Asymptote's First Built Work — Univers Theaters, Aarhus

Asymptote's first built work — the Univers Theaters in Aarhus, Denmark. Designed for the University of Aarhus, the project explored computational geometry and cinematic space, establishing Asymptote's approach to integrating advanced digital design with physical construction.

View Project → Univers Theaters in Aarhus, Denmark
1996 Exhibition

Asymptote's First Venice Biennale — Korean National Pavilion

Asymptote's first participation in the Venice Biennale — the Korean National History Museum project is selected for exhibition at the Korean National Pavilion of the 6th Venice Architecture Biennale, curated by Hans Hollein under the theme "Sensing the Future — The Architect as Seismograph." The Korean Pavilion exhibition was curated by Seok-won Kang.

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1994 Academic

Hani Rashid Co-founds the Paperless Studios at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture

Co-founded with Greg Lynn and Scott Marble under Dean Bernard Tschumi at GSAPP, the Paperless Studios were a pioneering initiative replacing physical drawings with 3D modeling and digital techniques — transforming architectural education.

1989 Award

Asymptote Receives First Prize for the Steel Cloud LA Gateway Competition

Asymptote wins the Los Angeles West Coast Gateway competition with the Steel Cloud — a radical suspended structure spanning the Hollywood Freeway. The project generates worldwide media coverage and announces Asymptote as a new voice in architecture.

View Project → Steel Cloud competition model — suspended structure above the Hollywood Freeway
1989 Founding

Studio Asymptote Relocates to New York City

Hani Rashid is joined by Lise Anne Couture as partner, and together they establish the studio on Broadway in Manhattan.

1988 Founding

Studio Asymptote Founded in Milan

Hani Rashid founds Studio Asymptote in Milan, Italy — establishing the practice that would go on to pioneer the convergence of architecture, technology, and virtual space.

Principals

Hani Rashid

Hani Rashid

Co-Founder / Principal

Hani Rashid is an architect, artist, and founder of Asymptote Architecture. He established the practice in Milan in 1988 and moved it to New York City in 1989, partnering with Lise Anne Couture. Over more than three decades, Rashid has led the firm's exploration of architecture as a medium that bridges the physical and the virtual, the speculative and the built — producing work that spans buildings, masterplans, installations, virtual environments, and product design across four continents.

Born in Cairo and raised between Italy, Algeria, the UK, and Canada, Rashid received his Bachelor of Architecture from Carleton University in Ottawa and his Master of Architecture from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He won his first international competition at the age of twenty-seven.

Rashid has held professorships at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, the University of Applied Arts Vienna (the Angewandte, 2011–2024), Princeton University, the Harvard School of Architecture (Kenzo Tange Chair), the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen, and ETH Zürich. At Columbia, he co-founded the Paperless Studios — the first program at a school of architecture worldwide dedicated to working solely with digital tools and means to produce architecture and experimental architecture. At the Angewandte, he initiated and directed the Deep Futures Lab, a post-professional degree program in architecture, and served as Dean of the Institute of Architecture from 2014 to 2016.

From 2013 to 2017, Rashid served as President of the Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation in Vienna. He has served on the Steering Committee of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and co-represented the United States at the 7th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2000. He and Couture were named by TIME Magazine as "Leaders in Innovation for the 21st Century," and together received the Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts. In 2024 both were elected National Academicians by the National Academy of Design. Asymptote's work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Frac Centre in Orléans, and the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich.

Lise Anne Couture

Lise Anne Couture

Co-Founder / Principal

Lise Anne Couture is an architect and co-founder of Asymptote Architecture, joining Hani Rashid as partner when the practice moved to New York City in 1989. As managing partner and principal, Couture is involved in all aspects of design oversight, working directly with clients, project teams, and specialist consultants to ensure the creative vision is sustained through every phase of a project.

Born in Montreal, Couture received her Bachelor of Architecture from Carleton University in Ottawa and her Master of Architecture from Yale University, where she studied under Frank Gehry. She is a New York State Registered Architect, a member of the AIA, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow.

Couture has held three chairs at Yale University (Bishop, Saarinen, and Davenport) and the Kenzo Tange Chair at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She has also taught at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Princeton University, Cornell University (Baird Chair), the University of Virginia (Shure Chair), SCI-Arc in Los Angeles, and the Parsons School of Design in New York. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Architectural League of New York and the GSA Design Excellence Peer Review Board.

Couture and Rashid were named by TIME Magazine as "Leaders in Innovation for the 21st Century," and together received the Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts. In 2024 both were elected National Academicians by the National Academy of Design. The practice's work has been the subject of four monographs and is widely published internationally. Asymptote's work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Frac Centre in Orléans, among others.

Approach

Digital Materiality

We treat digital tools not as means of representation but as material -- generative systems that produce form, structure, and spatial logic.

Convergent Practice

Architecture, urbanism, technology, and art collapse into a singular discipline. We reject boundaries between fields.

Radical Geometry

Every form is a proposition. Our geometries emerge from computational logic, contextual forces, and deliberate spatial provocation.

Contextual Tension

We design within friction -- between landscape and artifice, density and void, permanence and flux. Tension is generative.

Awards & Recognition

Major Prizes

  • National Academy of Design — Elected as National Academicians, 2024
  • Connecticut Architecture Foundation Distinguished Leadership Award, 2020
  • Architectural League of New York Emerging Voices, 1999
  • Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts
  • Le Grand Prix de l'Architecture — Yas Hotel
  • TIME Magazine — Leaders in Innovation for the 21st Century

Design Awards

  • Progressive Architecture (P/A) Award — Beukenhof Auditorium
  • AIA New York Chapter Design Awards — HydraPier, Carlos Miele Flagship, Alessi Flagship
  • American Architecture Award — World Business Center Busan
  • Danish Building of the Year — Univers Theatre, Aarhus
  • ArchDaily Building of the Year — Yas Hotel
  • Emirates Glass LEAF Award, Best Overall Building — Yas Hotel
  • IES Lumen Award, Technical Artistry in Lighting — Yas Hotel
  • Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Award — Yas Hotel
  • Hospitality Design Award, Best Hotel — Yas Hotel
  • FX International Interior Design Award — Yas Hotel

Competition Wins

Biennales & Major Exhibitions

  • Venice Architecture Biennale — United States Representative, 7th Biennale
  • Venice Architecture Biennale — Design Architects, Metamorph (9th Biennale)
  • Venice Architecture Biennale — Prototyping The Future, 11th Biennale
  • Venice Architecture Biennale — Guggenheim Virtual Museum
  • Documenta — Flux Space, Kassel
  • Centre Pompidou — Non Standard Architectures, Paris
  • Mori Art Museum — ArchiLab: New Experiments in Architecture, Art and the City, Tokyo
  • Architekturmuseum der TUM — The Architecture Machine, Munich
  • MoMA — Endless House: Intersections of Art and Architecture
  • MoMA — Applied Design
  • MoMA — Building Collections: Recent Acquisitions of Architecture
  • MoMA — Architecture and Design Drawings
  • Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture — Architecture=Art, New York, 2025

Selected Exhibitions 1988–1994

  • Canadian Centre for Architecture — "Urban Revisions," Montréal, 1994
  • Grand Hall, Takashimaya — "Asymptote: Ten Projects," Kyoto, 1994
  • Uzzan Galerie — "Hyperfine Splitting," Paris, 1994
  • Museum of Contemporary Art — "Urban Revisions," Los Angeles, 1994
  • Centre de Création Contemporain — "L'architecte est sur les lieux," Tours, 1994
  • Musée des Beaux Arts — Group Show, Chartres, 1994
  • German Cultural Center — "Berlin: Designing a Capital for the 21st Century," New York, 1993
  • Avery Hall, Columbia University — "Berlin Spreebogen Competition," New York, 1993
  • Whiteley's — "Theory & Experimentation," London, 1992
  • Sadock & Uzzan Galerie — "Les Architectes Plasticiens," Paris, 1991
  • Architecture Gallery, Princeton University — "Anaglyptic Architecture," Princeton, 1990
  • Buell Hall, Columbia University — "OPTIGRAPH 3," New York, 1990
  • Fenster Gallery — "ASYMPTOTE," Frankfurt, 1990
  • UNESCO Headquarters — "Alexandria Library Finalists," Paris, 1990
  • Staatliche Kunsthalle — "Paris—Architektur und Utopie," Berlin, 1990
  • Anna Leonowens Gallery — "Asymptote," Halifax, 1990
  • Aedes Gallery — "Experimental Architecture," Berlin, 1990
  • Pacific Design Center — "West Coast Gateway," Los Angeles, 1990
  • Emily Carr Gallery — "Rashid+Rashid," Vancouver, 1990
  • Pavilion de l'Arsenal — "Paris—Thought Pattern for the 21st Century," Paris, 1990
  • Gallery 76 — "Theory and Practice," Toronto, 1989
  • Steelcase Gallery — "30 under 30," New York, 1989
  • Griffith McGear Gallery — "Form; Being; Absence," New York, 1989
  • 2AES — "The Steel Cloud," San Francisco, 1989
  • Artists Space — "Kursaal for an Evacuee," New York, 1988

Fellowships & Academic Chairs

  • Kenzo Tange Chair — Harvard Graduate School of Design
  • Bishop Chair, Saarinen Chair, Davenport Chair — Yale University
  • Catedra Luis Barragan Chair — Monterrey, Mexico
  • Muschenheim Fellowship — University of Michigan
  • NYFA Fellowship — New York Foundation of the Arts
  • Aga Khan Award for Architecture — Steering Committee

Museum Collections

  • Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
  • Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
  • Centre Pompidou, Paris
  • San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA)
  • Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Montreal
  • Pinakothek der Moderne / Architekturmuseum der TUM, Munich
  • ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe
  • FRAC Centre, Orléans
  • Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam
View all collections & holdings →
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