Envirotecture’s award-winning design inspires 2025 Biophilic Design Award artwork

The Living Future’s Institute Biophilic Design Awards are an annual highlight for our practice given our biophilic leanings. Director Talina Edwards and fellow graduate-architect Mia Radic were in attendance at the award ceremony on 22 May. They were delighted to learn that the magnificent 2025 year’s trophy was inspired by Huff’n’Puff Haus, the Envirotecture-designed rural home that was an award winner in 2024.

Here’s how artist Graham Chalcroft described his inspiration for his stunning artwork. (Talina and Mia both love this so much!)

“The initial inspiration for the trophy design emerged as a visual wordplay on the name of the Huff'n'Puff Haus, selected from last year's winners as the hero image for promoting the 2025 Biophilic Design Awards. This sparked reflections on the emergence of oxygen, which profoundly reshaped our planet's chemistry, geology, and biology.

“This oxygen story is embodied in the trophy's central tree design, which morphs and branches out on either side into a stylised mirrored canopy that evokes both arboreal structure and the human respiratory system.

“The left side of the design represents the human bronchial tree and alveoli with cut-out aperture voids that abstractly echo the outline shape of Earth's first photosynthesizing organisms: the ancient cyanobacteria and algae species that transformed our planet by producing oxygen and eventually evolving into the plants and trees we so love.

“The right-hand tree canopy creates a visual bridge, celebrating the magnificence of trees often noted as the Earth's lungs while acknowledging over 50% of our oxygen comes from marine algae, highlighting the vital connection between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems—a relationship critical to biophilic thinking.

“The tree roots and apex branching intersect with the circular frame, symbolically recognising cyclical biological processes in nature. This same principle of circularity is pertinent to biophilic and regenerative design.

“Significantly, the trophy design carries a message about adaptation. The rise of an oxygen-saturated atmosphere triggered Earth’s first mass extinction event. Yet life responded with remarkable resilience, evolving and opening new ecological niches. This is a powerful metaphor for today's climate challenges—just as ancient organisms adapted to environmental change, our built environments must embrace responsive, regenerative design.

“Tonight's winners exemplify this spirit of adaptation, creating spaces that actively contribute to the health of both human communities and the living systems that sustain all life.”

The beautiful trophy Huff’n’Puff Haus won last year was designed by the same artist and a homage to one of the 2023 winners. Taronga Institute of Science and Learning’s entry facade design references the shell pattern of the endangered Bellinger River snapping turtle, one of the creatures it studies.

The Living Future Institute of Australia shared the story of how Huff’n’Puff is biophilic in this article if you’d like to learn more. 

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