The Tower stands tall in the middle of the campus – pigeons nest in the conic shadow of the roof, while students play tag around its base during lunch. It’s like the eye of Sauron, standing unblinking watch over the denizens of its city, if Sauron had but sequestered himself not in the hellish blight of Mordor but amid tufts of lush greenery and screaming schoolchildren. The Tower is an unlikely example of environmental architecture that can be found in Jeju Island, South Korea, on the campus of North London Collegiate School Jeju.

Ten years ago when the school was first built, the Tower wasn’t meant to be green architecture at all. Over the years, however, through examining the way the Tower interacts with the nature of Jeju, we students have come to term it the greenest landmark of our school – the name becoming even more fitting after we achieved the status of an Eco school last year thanks to the efforts of students and staff.

The first reason that the Tower is an example of green architecture is that it interacts with its environment in a completely integrative way. The windows on the top of the tower allow for sunlight to filter through it for most hours of the day, making it the ideal environment for boarding students and staff members to cultivate small gardens and miniature ecosystems on the top floor. It is also an excellent spot for pigeons to roost and for the many avian species on Jeju island to visit – its original purpose as a watchtower for the Halla mountain, which is visible in the distance on days that the fine dust clears, is sometimes remedied as a place for birds to double down during the winter. Furthermore, the tower itself is powered by no electrical or fossil fuel-burning medium. Its position at the centre of the campus, standing miles above the rest of the school’s buildings, means that the Tower doesn’t require any electrical light in order to illuminate the staircase nor the top floor.

The second reason that the Tower is our school’s proudest green landmark is that it was locally sourced and contributed a minimum of pollution towards the local environment. One of the biggest factors that leverage construction pollution is the haul distance of raw material, or the distance that material must travel in order to reach the site of erection. The tower’s external panels were sourced entirely from the surrounding Jeju environment, and consequently have a much lower carbon footprint of burnt diesel and fossil fuels than if the stone had come from a quarry overseas. The Tower was born on Jeju, built on Jeju, and continues giving back to Jeju – from the moment of inception, it was intended to become a green monument.

The final reason that the Tower is such an excellent green building is that it inspired the incorporation of natural elements in the design of the school. The campus’ field is designed like a malformed disc – the tower stands at the centre of the circle, while roads cut across blankets of grass in the formation of spokes on a wheel as they branch out into different parts of the campus. The position takes advantage of the minimum amount of space for humans’ locomotion, and leaves the rest for nature to cultivate. This design, which makes possible the maximized integration of vegetation and trees on the school campus, was inspired by the placement of the tower and has come to represent the green identity of our school. By making it possible for our learning environment to better reflect the beauty of the ecosystem that surrounds us, the Tower has paved the way for the installation of further eco-friendly architecture for our school.

Architecture must always aim to give back to the environment that surrounds it, and our school's Tower is a personal example of how that cycle may be consummated. Live long and prosper, Sauron!

(image credits : Jenn on Jeju)