Xiangshawan Desert Lotus Hotel

Lotus Hotel is located in Xiangshawan Desert, 800 kilometers west to Beijing and middle of Ordos and Baotou. The site is facing Hantai River, a branch of Yellow River, and east to Kubuqi Desert that more than 200 kilometers wide.

• Architects: PLaT Architects 
• Location: Xiangshawan Desert, China
• Completion Date: March, 2013
• Area: 30,000 sqm
• Photographs: Courtesy of PLaT Architect

Due to the restriction by its special geographic condition, PLaT Architects invented a new structural system that fix in fluid sands using only steel panels without the help of concrete or water. The panels and the supporting skeleton structures are pre-fabricated, and make the base of the building a large container for sands. Thus, the steel panel structure can function as a boat floating on desert that carries the building. The sands in and out of the structure exert same forces to each other, and thus it is flexibly stabilized. Also, walls are load-bearing structures in order to reduce the pressure on base. 

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Street Art by DALeast

DALeast is a Chinese born artist that lives and works in Capetown, South Africa. The 29-year-old, who keeps his real name a secret, has been making art since he was three. His unusual paintings, which are sometimes hundreds of feet across, looks three dimensional and appears to have been created out of thousands of tiny metal shards.

DALeast showed an interest for drawing since he was two or three. When he grew up, he studied Sculpture in the Fine Art Institute in his hometown Wuhan, but dropped out in the fourth year – one year before he was supposed to complete. DALeast was disillusioned by the conservative mind sets and teaching methods. While in his first year of study, he joined a graffiti crew called JEJ, which is one of the first generation active graffiti crews in China. The teacher hated him because he would often neglect class work, instead spending his time on the streets painting walls.

Once, just before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, police broke into a house he was staying in and arrested him and his graffiti crew. They thought they were terrorists after they saw the group all night bombing and tagging.

DALeast spends six months of the year travelling and has tagged walls on nearly every continent. His works can be seen in Cape Town, Miami, New York and London's Brick Lane, as well as his native China.

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Aerial View Of Paris

France - A country of romance and love, fine dining, French champagne, cognac legendary and the highest wealth tax in Europe. Here in Paris is the most visited sites in the world – the Eiffel Tower. So, Paris aerial view. 

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