The Biggest Tent in the World

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K. Hariharan Krishnamurthy (K. Hariharan)

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The Biggest Tent in the World

Khan Shatyr Entertainment Center in Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan, is an architectural project that is billed as the world’s largest tent. The “tent” is made of a transparent material and suspended on a network of cables strung from a central spire 150 meters high. The structure has a 200 meter elliptical base enclosing an area of 140,000 square meters.

Underneath the tent, an area larger than 10 football stadiums, is an urban-scale internal park, shopping and entertainment venue with squares and cobbled streets, a boating river, shopping centre, mini golf and indoor beach resort.

The transparent material allows sunlight through which, in conjunction with air heating and cooling systems, maintains a comfortable internal temperature between 15–30 °C while outside the temperature varies between -35 and 35 °C across the year.

To prevent condensation in the winter, three translucent layers of ethylene tetrafluoroethylene fabric or EFTE act to channel warm air. In summer, fritting on the outermost foil layer provides solar shading. Inside, low-level jets direct cool air across the space, while opening vents at the apex induce stack-effect ventilation.

The transparency and scale of the tent stands out in the skyline like a beacon, changing colors at night and streaming in natural light during the day.