What is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful, thoughtful and functional "green" projects in the world is taking shape in the ancient kingdom of Ladakh, a remote region high in the Indian Himalayas, west of Tibet.
It is the international award-winning Druk White Lotus School, a low-tech, unique and virtually self-sustainable educational complex for 800 children ages 3 to 18. It was designed and is being built by British architects and engineers, local educators and the Ladakhi mountain community for the Drukpa Trust under the patronage of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.
To celebrate the visit of His Holiness to UB next week, the School of Architecture and Planning will present "Building Culture: Druk White Lotus School," an exhibition of photographs, architectural plans and drawings of Druk White Lotus School and its environs.
The exhibit will be on display, beginning today through Sept. 24, in the UB Art Gallery in the Center for the Arts, North Campus. The exhibit hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow, Saturday, Wednesday and Sept. 22 and 23; 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. today and Sept. 21; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday and Sept. 24.; 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday; and noon to 2 p.m. and 5-7 p.m. on Tuesday.
The school is a collaborative venture involving the London architectural firm Arup Associates, project architects for the school; the engineering firm Ove Arup; the Ladakhi Buddhist community; and the Ladakh Public Works Drupka Trust, based in Great Britain.
While the school's infant court and nursery school are in operation, the project will not be completed until 2009. Nevertheless, it already has received considerable press attention and several prestigious World Architecture Awards for Best Green Building, Best Education Building and Best Asian Building.
This remarkable undertaking is considered widely to be an object lesson in how to promote prosperity, youth enterprise and cultural values in one of the world's peripheral regions.
The site's fragile, high-desert environment is under threat from inappropriate development. This has provoked concern for the preservation of the multidimensional Ladhaki culture itself and informed the Druk project from its inception.
To protect the environment, the project uses traditional building methods, modern forms and technologies, and locally produced recyclable materials to produce an aesthetically attractive complex that is virtually self-sustainable and expressive of a deep reverence for the natural environment.
Although the population of the region is 50 percent Buddhist and the school is based on Buddhist principles, it also must serve the interests of the Hindu and Muslim populations of Ladakh.
The White Lotus School curriculum supports a broad-based education, initially in the native Ladakhi language and later in English, that honors traditional Buddhist teachings while supporting the indigenous culture and advancing modern scientific knowledge of interest to the general population.
Only 10 percent of Ladakh's school children finish high school, in part because many schools in the region are taught in Urdu, a language not spoken by much of the population, and additional instruction available in monasteries is open only to boys.
When complete, the White Lotus School will have an enrollment of 800 boys and girls, including the poorest, from its immediate environs and, through a residential program, from distant valleys as well.