As a result of this, echelons of rank and prestige in architecture that have long fallen in terms of built structures, imposing sizes, and expensive commissions, are no more. Some of Asymptote's greatest architectural feats are structures that are so complacently tectonic they don't even need to be built. The mere implication of their presence conveys a job well done for the firm; and an idea ever-present, unavoidable and radical for the future of the industry.

Asymptote alighted the international scene in 1996 with a commission from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to, in the face of an uncontrollably complex strategy for managing their data and information, create a virtual environment which would facilitate the reading, correlation, and navigation of forever burgeoning amounts of information. They created the NYSE 3D Trading Floor, the first business application of a fully-interactive real-time virtual reality architecture. Like for any other trading floor, the architects sought a composition of landscape, movement and form to accommodate data. Analogous to an archive room that keeps up with real time and is constantly presenting and arranging immediate information as it happens, this digital environment set the standard for architecture where physicality is archaic. Theory, functionality and malleability of space and structure resound.

In 2004 Asymptote participated in the international competition for the Guggenheim Guadalajara, and while they lost to Enrique Norten, their surprising proposal has since been attracting attention and acclaim. With a strong, iconic architectural expression on a spectacular, clifftop site, the diaphanous spectre seemingly hovers like a spaceship. It is touted by the architects as a space that performs simultaneously as a "dramatic viewing platform, a gateway, a gathering place, an urban theatre and an outdoor exhibition space."

Vast and cavernous, the structure is surprisingly passive, neutralising the potential vertigo such a precipitous location and such a daring design could provoke. From the computer renderings we see escalators ascend like gangways from partially covered plaza spaces into what we only imagine is the mothership; the visitor rises into a large-scale twisting cylindrical glass entry volume that extends the full height of the building interior, and from there into the central atrium which is the main interior space of the museum. A dream-like atmosphere is emphasised where spatial continuity ambiguously melds interior and exterior, and nature, art and artifice.

Of their other projects, Asymptote's flagship creations for Alessi and Carlos Miele, both in New York, have similarly embraced the fluidity of architecture and design. The Carlos Miele flagship store, intended to be a crucible of Brazillian culture and the cool of New York, harks more towards the undulating white of a Hadid creation than a cross-cultural celebration. Two-tone high gloss epoxy flooring is embedded with neon and halogen lights, over which curved formed steel hanging displays cantilevered from the walls are set above lacquered and plywood display units. Both the storefront window area and the changerooms make use of backlit floor and walls using 3M effusion film, plexiglas and fluorescent lighting. The Alessi flagship store is predicated on mathematically inspired and derived elegance. Understated digital tools and means privilege a tectonic play of sophisticated geometric solutions in place of symbolic gestures. Again, inescapable white surfaces jut, curve and cross, making the store itself appear like the latest, sleekest gadget.

On the other side of the world, the Mutiara Complex, perched atop the hills of Penang, Malaysia, seeks to envelop an entirely constructed precinct, like a physical incarnation of Asymptote's web-based realms. It is a crystallised meeting point of time, space, nature and technology and it is uncompromisingly theoretical and integrative, consuming green space, shopping plaza, urban cultural plaza, a Philharmonic hall, a convention centre, a high-end retail area and cinemas, in one clean, rigid, systematic sweep.

Their celebrated HydraPier, is a little softer, but no less methodical. It is a municipal pavilion fit to fix the city of Haarlemmermeer, Netherlands, forever on the map. Located adjacent to Schipol Airport, it's a cleverly designed miracle. The noisy, chaotic airspace of incoming and outbound aeroplanes, and the endless streams of highway commuters on the adjacent highways leave the HydraPier unharmed; it is a serene, pastoral landscape. These 19th century dams and pumping stations are still in existence, and connote Holland's historic but tenuous connection with surrounding sea. Drained almost 150 years ago, and transformed into usable land, the HydraPier is a multimedia exhibition space. From overhead, visitors flying into the nearby airport see the HydraPier centre as a fluid, floating wing; its continuous flowing water-walls, combining natural and technological forces, reflects the sky and the rustic surrounds. Even their tangible creations retain an element of the unreal, the dream-like, touching and colonising the boundaries and spaces that were always thought impregnable. +

Previous. Asymptote's impressive Mutiara complex, Penang, that complements the mountainous landscape and pulls it into the urban fold.

Top. Mutiara's towers are to be landmarks of architectural quality, emblematic of the entire, diverse development.

Second. The complex is to host a range of recreational activities in a variety of natural outdoor and indoor settings, like festivals, performances, exhibitions, and shopping.

Third. A view of Asymptote's design for the Guggenheim Guadalajara, Mexico. While they didn't win the design competition, this ethereal white structure hovering atop the Mexican cliffside has attracted much attention and acclaim for the firm.

Bottom. The space age, mirage-like design, with large scale twisting cylindrical volumes in the atrium space, admits and conveys neutrality as it welcomes the primacy of the art it has been designed to house.