The SECMOL (Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh) School building features rammed-earth construction and passive solar architecture. The region has a cold desert climate with temperature variation from 20°C (68°F) in summer to -30°C (-22°F) in winter. Luckily this area has over 300 sunny days per year, so the sun is a reliable energy source.
The SECMOL campus is home to about 70 students, a few staff members, and volunteers who live, work, and study there. It is maintained and, to a large extent, run by students themselves. The campus comprises one large school building, three residential houses, and 20 small cell rooms apart from other necessary infrastructure.
The school building was designed by Sonam Wangchuk – a locally born engineer-turned-architect and Ramon Magsaysay.
The construction started in 1994 and was inaugurated in 1998 by Dalai Lama. In…
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