On May 12, 2008, a 7.9-magnitude earthquake rocked the Sichuan Province in Western China, killing 68,000 people. The quake also toppled homes and public buildings that were supposed to withstand such disasters after the devastating 1976 Tangshan earthquake. The Qiang community, an ethnic group in the northwestern part of the province, was one of the hardest hit. In Yangliu Village, many of the houses were destroyed. Others were in the path of a possible landslide. Villagers lived in tents.

By September 2009, Taiwanese architect Hsieh Ying-Chun had helped the agricultural village construct 56 new homes for 350 people. Hsieh runs the 30-person firm Atelier-3 in Sun Moon Lake, Taiwan, and has dedicated his practice to disaster-relief architecture since the 1999 earthquake in Taiwan. In 2011 he was awarded the Curry Stone Design Prize.