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Winner of quake design was driven 'to do something'

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When Sichuan province was devastated by a magnitude 8 earthquake in May last year, Gao Jianhang was busy preparing for a trip to the United States to study urban design at Harvard University.

The 24-year-old Beijinger said many fellow students from Tsinghua University's architecture department went to the quake zone to help as volunteers, but he was not able to join them.

'However, at the bottom of my heart, I always wanted to do something for Sichuan,' he said.

That dream bore fruit last month when Gao and two other mainland students at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, Xiong Xing and Lu Xiaoxuan, won the top prize in a competition to design quake-resistant housing.

Their 'shaking houses' design beat 184 other entries in the Greenville Student Design Competition, organised by architectural firm Aedas and the South China Morning Post's Homes for Hope project.

Gao, who represented the trio at last week's award presentation ceremony in Hong Kong, was proud that their efforts had won recognition.

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