Asymptote. Flux

Asymptote, an award-winning New York City-based architectural firm, expands the boundaries of traditional practice with work that ranges from buildings and urban design to computer-generated environments. Recognized internationally as both cutting-edge architects and virtual-reality artists, Asymptote partners Lise Anne Couture and Hani Rashid have designed and written the first book to document their 'real world' (as opposed to virtual) projects completed since 1995. It includes work as diverse as a trading floor for the New York Stock Exchange; a multimedia research park in Kyoto, Japan; a modular furniture system for Knoll; and a centre for art and technology for the Guggenheim Museum in Soho, New York.

Rashid and Couture's work is intriguing because it draws inspiration from a wide range 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. Asymptote 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. The projects are interspersed with descriptive text and the speculative writing that Asymptote is known for.

Both partners combine architectural practice with teaching, Rashid at Columbia University and Couture at Columbia and Parsons School of Design.