Trail of Empathy: A Koala Rehabilitation Centre Designed from the Animal's Point of View

Most wildlife centres are built for the people who visit them, with the animals arranged as the exhibit. Trail of Empathy reverses that hierarchy. Its plan starts from the koala's needs: how far it moves, what it fears, and how much ground it requires. Human visitors receive whatever the animals can spare. The result is less a building than a carefully limited path, a walkable roof that rises out of the terrain and lets people look in without stepping in.

Designed by Kripa Jain and Ritika Somani, the proposal was shortlisted in Haven 2020. It responds to the fragile habitat of koalas in Australia with a rehabilitation centre shaped by the idea of slow architecture, where time, ecology and experience set the spatial agenda. Rather than placing a volume on the land, the designers set a low structure into the slope so that it appears to grow from the ground. This keeps disturbance to a minimum and makes the visitor's route an exercise in close attention.

Seventy-Five Percent Reserve, One Choreographed Path

The central planning decision is also the boldest: nearly 75 percent of the site stays as natural reserve. Koalas move across the landscape without interruption, while human access is restricted to a single curated trail. The rendering shows the result at ground level. Timber-framed wire mesh enclosures line a walkway, young trees grow inside the boundaries, and visitors pass through dappled light at a respectful distance. The mesh does more than separate people from animals. It turns the edge into something to look through, so the visitor's view never becomes contact.

This is where the project's title becomes literal. Movement carries the narrative, and each boundary states an ethical position about who has priority on this land. Empathy is presented as a product of restraint: you understand the animal's world because the architecture refuses to let you take it over.

Interiors Pressed into the Earth

Inside, the material palette stays close to the ground. A long oval table and a timber bookshelf sit in a room with rammed-earth walls, beneath a curved timber roof that opens to the forest. Because the room is set into the slope, it reads like a hollow cut into the hill. It suits a centre that wants visitors to slow down, read and absorb what they see before they continue along the trail.

The waiting area adds a sharper accent. A glowing cylindrical column with an onyx-like finish anchors the space, and curved steps follow the fall of the land while low sun spreads across the floor. These moments demonstrate the designers' preference for locally sourced, low-impact materials. Light becomes the main ornament, and the earthen surfaces absorb it with very little fuss.

Post and Beam Spans for Working Space

A rehabilitation centre is also a workplace, and the office rendering treats it with the same care as the public rooms. Rows of desks face a tall timber slat screen, and tree shadows move across the earthen wall behind. The construction system explains why the room feels so open: wooden post and beam frameworks reach large spans while keeping a small structural footprint. Few columns means the plan can adapt as the programme changes, which matters for an institution whose needs will follow the population it cares for.

The slat screen deserves attention. It filters daylight, controls views and keeps staff visually connected to the forest without exposing the work inside. It is a modest device, yet it repeats the logic of the whole scheme at the scale of a single wall.

A Roof That Becomes Ground, an Edge That Becomes Shield

The presentation boards show how the project actually works. The sections place low buildings among tall wild plants and follow the structure as it steps down the sloping terrain. The slope drives the design: the building settles into the land, and its roof emerges from the ground to serve as a walkable surface. Visitors cross the site on top of the architecture, above the rehabilitation zones rather than through them. One surface performs two roles, and the footprint shrinks accordingly.

The boards also cover the public programme, including a ticket counter and a taxidermy library, which teaches without involving living animals. Along the road, the visitor centre forms a protective edge that acts as entry threshold and buffer, shielding the reserve from traffic, noise and domestic animals. Stone-based softscapes soften that edge so vegetation can reclaim it over time. On the other boundaries, a green wall system works both as a barrier and as a strategy for future expansion. The perimeter is designed to grow, not to stay fixed.

Why This Project Matters

Conservation architecture often slips into spectacle: viewing decks, glass walls and close encounters that serve the visitor more than the animal. Trail of Empathy argues the opposite. By giving three quarters of the site back to the koalas and reducing the human presence to a single route, Kripa Jain and Ritika Somani treat restraint as the core of the design rather than a limit on it. The walkable roof works so well because it combines access, education and protection in one move.

The proposal also takes time seriously. Softscapes that vegetation will overtake and green walls that double as expansion space describe a building meant to change with its landscape. For a competition about refuge, that may be the most valuable lesson here: a haven for wildlife depends as much on where architects choose not to build as on what they build.

View the Full Project

About the Designers

Designers: Kripa Jain, Ritika Somani

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Project credits: Trail of Empathy by Kripa Jain, Ritika Somani Haven 2020 (uni.xyz).