Feb 16th 2017

Dean's Lecture Series: Hani Rashid

Hani Rashid is co-founder and design partner at Asymptote Architecture in New York City.

Hani has achieved international recognition for his work and Asymptote’s global renown, and has been practicing architecture for over 20 years. In addition to his professional practice, he has achieved a distinguished international academic career, with visiting professorships at universities including: the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. As Associate Professor of Architecture at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture he co-developed the school’s Advanced Digital Design program in 1991 and co-founded the Paperless Design Studios in 1996. Rashid has held the Kenzo Tange Chair for Architecture at Harvard and served on the steering committee for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Currently, Rashid is head of a research department at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Rashid received a Master of Architecture from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in 1985.

Hani Rashid co-represented the United States at the 7th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2000. He was awarded the Chair to the Cátedra Luis Barragán in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2004. That same year he and co-founder and partner of Asymptote, Lise Anne Couture, were awarded the Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts. 

Asymptote's projects include the Yas Viceroy Hotel in Abu Dhabi ( 2010), ARC Multimedia Theater in Daegu South Korea (2013), the HydraPier cultural pavilion in the Netherlands (2004), 166 Perry condominiums (2008), Alessi HQ (2004-2012) and the Carlos Miele flagship store in New York city (2006), and the Univers Theaters in Aarhus Denmark (1998). Other projects include an award-winning design for StrataTower in Abu Dhabi, an Eco-Cultural Master Plan for Baku, Azerbaijan, commercial office towers in Budapest, Hungary, and the World Business Center Solomon Tower in Busan, South Korea.

Asymptote has also designed important master planing projects for Bergamo italy, Prague the Czech Republic, Monterrey Mexico and Penang Malaysia. Presently Asymptote is completing buildings in Gent Belgium for the ING bank HQ, two office towers in ZhenZou China and two connected residential towers in Seoul.

Asymptote Architecture has received numerous prestigious awards including the AIA NY chapter award, Middle Eastern Architecture Awards and Le Grand Prix de l’Architecture in Paris, as well as received significant awards for achievement within the discipline such as the 2004 Frederic Keisler Prize in recognition of their exceptional contributions to the progress and merging of art and architecture.