'We commissioned the solar generator in 2008 because Ladakh has nearly 300 days of clear sunshine,' said Philip Cornwell, first chair of the Drukpa Trust, London, who helped raise funds for the school through international charities.

The award winning features of the school, Cornwell said, were the ventilation improved pit latrines that did not need water 'in a desert environment', passive solar heating devices and 'trombe' walls that trapped heat and released them slowly through narrow spaces between the facades, a gravity feed water system that pumped snow-melt water from a depth of 30 metres and anti-seismic wooden rods and steel support structures to withstand earthquakes.

'A double chamber system allows the toilet to function as composting pits to produce natural manure, while the trombe walls of the school residences are coated with a dark heat-absorbing material and double layers of glass to trap and store heat throughout the year into the classrooms and dormitories,' Cornwell explained.

The school also offers a carbon offset investment programme to visitors flying in to Ladakh to reduce their carbon footprints by investing in the school's solar generator system.

The school was set up in the mid-1990s as a kindergarten education facility after some villagers requested the 12th Gwalyang Drukpa to build a 'modern English medium school' for their children.

'We set up the Drukpa International Trust in London in 1992 and started raising funds with our Indian counterpart, Druk Pema Karpo Education Society. Two young architects, Jonathan Rose and Duncan Woodburn, implemented the design conceived by Gwalyang Drukpa,' Cornwell recalled. It was completed in 2001.

The school over the years has expanded to Class 7 and will have Class 8 by 2010.

(Madhusree Chatterjee can be contacted at madhu.c@ians.in)