Innovative library lifts fortunes of Chinese village

Jiaojiehe, China

NESTLED among the shimmering chestnut, walnut and peach trees of a deep valley surrounded by craggy hills, the tiny village of Jiaojiehe suffers from being close to the nation's capital. The young flee easily to the big city, leaving the elderly behind, lonely and poor.

But Li Xiaodong, an award-winning architect who fuses traditional Chinese ideas of design with Western themes, was captivated by the potential he saw in the village's most abundant natural resource - the branches of its thousands of trees, which the locals harvest for fuel.