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The world’s tallest and arguably the most futuristic tent has opened to the public in the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan. The Khan Shatyr Entertainment Centre, located in the capital city of Astana, is 150m (490ft) high. The centre has a huge indoor leisure park, shops, restaurants, movie theaters, and even an artificial beach inside the building! Link to story. Link to website. -via YeinJee’s Asian Blog
From the Upcoming 
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Kazakhstan has commissioned BIG Architects to build a library and cultural center in the city of Astana. The design that the firm submitted in response is shaped like a Möbius strip — a structure that has only one side:
The building itself is a complicated juxtaposition of different ideas and concepts. It forms a spiraling circle around a strong vertical core that allows visitors to the library to move between floors. The museum’s curves form a möbius strip, so the interior becomes the exterior and back again; likewise the walls become the roof and the roof transforms back into the walls. The interior corridors are naturally daylit through geometric openings in the exterior shell, creating beautifully lit spaces perfect for reading.
To minimize cooling loads on the library, BIG Architects employed some advanced computer modeling to calculate the thermal exposure on the building envelope. Because of the warping and twisting of the exterior, some parts of the building receive more light than others. By taking that information, BIG was able to create a geometric pattern or “ecological ornament” to regulate the solar impact.
Photo gallery at the link.
You may not be able to travel to Kazakhstan to view the building, but you can experience the same one-sided sensation with our Möbius strip t-shirt, now on sale at the Neatorama Shop.
Sakhan Dosova of Karaganda in northern Kazakhstan has documents that say she will celebrate her 130th birthday on Friday. Census officials discovered that her documents all agree that her birthdate is March 27, 1879. Records show she was on the books as 47 years old when a census was taken under the Stalinist regime in 1926.
Nailya Dosayeva, head of social and demographical department of Karaganga regional statistics bureau, said there is no doubt that her claim is authentic.
‘Sakhan Dosova was found during our census held in February and March. She has an old passport and documents which are genuine, and based on these we can judge her age as being correct.’
The local mayor Islam Togaybayev went to visit her ‘to personally congratulate her on such an achievement and show his respect’, said his spokesman.
Other officials are not so sure.
Some Kazakh bureaucrats want more checks to be done to ascertain the accuracy of her claim, pointing out that birth records in Kazakhstan in the 19th century are notoriously unreliable.
‘We can see that this is turning into a big story and for the sake of our country, we need to be sure her claim is correct,’ said one official.
According to one version of her life, she must have given birth to several children over the age of 60, he said.
‘There is no doubt she is very old. But is she really 130? Or was there a white lie long ago which was never corrected? We need to find out.’
Dosova attributes her longevity to a sense of humor. Link -via Unique Daily
