He bought the three old houses seven years ago, not far from a reservoir, with plans to renovate them into hostels. However, by 2020, Tsering Dondrub had still not found a partner who was willing to renovate the three houses, which otherwise would be torn down.

In May 2020, Chinese bookstore brand Librairie Avant-Garde, headquartered in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, opened its new branch in a village in Shaxi ancient town of Dali Bai autonomous prefecture, Yunnan. Its founder Qian Xiaohua and rotating chairman Zhang Ruifeng soon started looking for other opportunities in the province.

They came to Shangri-La at the invitation of the local government because, since 2014, their bookstores renovated from derelict old houses in rural areas have successfully brought vitality back to those hollowed-out villages, setting good examples for rural vitalization in China.

They were taken to the commercial areas in Dukezong ancient town and other places, but Qian always prefers a venue with a good view that has not yet been touched by commerce.

"We always want to create a place to realize our idealism about bookstores, rather than simply for business," Zhang says.

When Tsering Dondrub first showed them the three ramshackle Tibetan houses, they were quite impressed, but there were dozens of such houses nearby. A year later, when they viewed the houses again, Qian decided to rent them. Otherwise, they were very likely to be torn down like other deserted houses.

They invited architect Zhao Yang to design the renovation plan.

Zhao, a graduate of Tsinghua University and Harvard University, is now based in Dali. For years, he has been trying to put his architectural idealism into practice — to talk to nature with an open mind.

"A good house is like a tree. If a tree grows well, it's because it grows in the right place — it can adapt to the local water, soil and sunlight conditions," he was quoted in a previous interview. "What I have learned from building houses in rural areas is that there are no definite rules about design, which changes according to local conditions."

Before the bookstore, Zhao already completed two works in the places lived in by Tibetans. One is the Nyangchu River tourist center, which was completed in 2009 and is located in Nyingchi county in Xizang along National Highway 318.