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Australia’s most distinctive cubby houses are not unique for one reason. Some are digitally fabricated objects with cave-like interiors; others are designed as children-controlled systems, tree-integrated hideaways, theatrical pavilions or compact backyard rooms. The five documented projects below show those different interpretations rather than an objectively ranked national “top five.”
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What makes a cubby house genuinely unique?
A cubby can stand out through its silhouette, but shape is only one measure. A small timber box may be more inventive in use than an elaborate sculpture if children can continually remake it. Conversely, a structure can begin with the idea of a cubby and become a substantially larger building with sleeping, bathing and living functions.
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These five Australian examples cover five distinct design dimensions:
- Form and fabrication: digital printing, biomorphic geometry and unusual surfaces.
- Child-led flexibility: components that children move, open and rearrange.
- Landscape integration: a building organised around a mature tree or garden.
- Theatrical materiality: shutters, curtains, bridges and changing light.
- Scale: a compact backyard playhouse at one end and a house-linked pavilion at the other.
The projects are presented as sourced examples illustrating those meanings of uniqueness. The available project records do not establish a common scoring system, a market ranking or a complete national survey.
Kooky Cubby: a digitally fabricated cave for play
Concept and recognition
FMSA Architecture developed Kooky Cubby for the 2017 Cubby House Challenge with the RMIT Architectural Robotics Lab, Upstream Studio and Aurecon. The project treats a cubby as an inhabitable, digitally produced landscape rather than a miniature conventional house. Eight digitally printed panels formed part of its fabrication process, allowing the designers to work with curves and openings that would be difficult to achieve economically with standard flat panels.
The project profile records that Kooky Cubby won the Best Architecturally Designed Cubby award at the 2017 Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. It later sold for $20,000, with the proceeds contributing to Kids Under Cover fundraising. That figure is a historical sale result for this challenge project, not a current retail price or a benchmark for commissioning a cubby.
Materials and interior experience
Its walls use textured, translucent PLA polymer. Light passes through the patterned surface while the texture gives the enclosure a tactile, almost geological character. Contoured marine-grade plywood forms the floor, following the organic geometry rather than imposing a rectangular platform.
Inside, tunnels, nooks and caves create a sequence of concealed and revealed spaces. A child can crawl, hide, look out or change direction, so the design offers more than a single open room. The biomorphic form is therefore functional: it makes movement and discovery the main architectural event.
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What to learn from it
Kooky Cubby demonstrates how computer-controlled fabrication can be used for a child-sized structure without making it feel like a scaled-down adult building. The lesson for a custom project is not to copy its polymer panels, but to decide which activities—crawling, hiding, climbing or peeking—should generate the plan and the openings.
MySpace Cubby: a structure children can continually remake
Designing with children, not merely for them
Grimshaw Architects’ MySpace Cubby makes flexibility its defining feature. The project included workshops with children during design development; the source account notes that orange was a popular colour choice. That participation is reflected in the finished object, where the child is not only an occupant but an active organiser of the space.
Four levels of movable blocks
Across four levels, children can move blocks to form openings, furniture or storage. The same pieces can support a game one day and become a barrier, seat or hiding place the next. Because the enclosure can be reconfigured, the cubby does not prescribe one route through it or one correct way to play.
The frame is made from Tasmanian Oak, while translucent polycarbonate encloses the structure. The combination gives the cubby a warm timber skeleton and a filtered relationship with the outside: children can create concealment without losing all visual connection to the garden or supervising adults.
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Why its uniqueness is operational
MySpace Cubby is a reminder that novelty does not require an unusual outline. Its architectural idea is a rule for use: move the blocks and the building changes. For families considering a flexible cubby, the important questions are how heavy each element should be, where it can be stored, and how openings remain safe and usable after repeated rearrangement. The documented project establishes the movable-block concept and materials, but it does not publish a universal specification for those details.
Taringa Treehouse: a cubby organised around a living tree
Landscape as the starting point
Phorm architecture + design’s Taringa Treehouse, featured by ArchDaily on 12 July 2017, begins with an existing tree rather than treating vegetation as decoration around a prefabricated playhouse. The building is shaped around that tree and makes the garden part of the play sequence.
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Platforms, climbing and a loft
A lower platform has a veranda edge, while a climbing wall leads toward an upstairs loft. Sliding walls open the informal spaces to the landscape, allowing the boundary between inside and outside to change with weather, activity and the child’s chosen game. The arrangement combines the recognisable ingredients of a cubby—an elevated refuge, an approach route and a lookout—with the spatial generosity of a small treehouse.
The architects connect the material character to the language and sensibilities of children’s cubby houses. That connection matters: the project is not simply an adult observation deck placed in a tree. Its levels and openings are calibrated around the imaginative associations of climbing, hiding and claiming a territory.
Tree-based design decisions
Using a mature tree as an organising element requires the building, access and landscape to be considered together. The Taringa example shows the design potential of that relationship, but the project record does not provide a generic construction method for every species, root condition or site. A new build would need site-specific structural and arboricultural advice rather than assuming that any tree can carry or sit beside a platform.
Kids Pod: when a cubby idea becomes a pavilion
From backyard playhouse to house extension
Mihaly Slocombe’s Kids Pod is the largest departure from the conventional standalone cubby. Lunchbox Architect describes it as a pavilion extension to Hill House on a vineyard, connected to the original home by a glazed bridge. It contains a bedroom, playroom and bathroom, so its intended use extends beyond short play sessions.
The project is a useful test of scale. A cubby does not stop being a cubby because it gains serious architectural functions; its character can survive in the way spaces are revealed, closed, hidden and adapted.
Vines, shutters and changing interiors
The timber skin is patterned from the clients’ favourite Pinot Noir vines, giving the exterior a site- and client-specific identity. Operable steel shutters control light and views. When open, they admit daylight and frame the vineyard; when closed, the pavilion glows like a lantern.
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Inside, a red curtain and retractable wall allow different configurations. Those devices create a theatrical quality without relying on elaborate technology: a room can become a stage, a secret enclosure or a more open family space. The architect describes the intention this way: “Kids Pod is a reinterpretation of how we once imagined our own childhood cubbyhouses to be. It is playful, theatrical, secretive and robust. It punches beyond the reaches of its diminutive size.”
Why it belongs in a cubby-house discussion
Kids Pod shows that the essence of a cubby is not its floor area. It is the combination of refuge, transformation and imaginative ownership. The glazed bridge, shutters and movable internal elements make the pavilion feel connected to a larger home while preserving the secretive atmosphere associated with a child’s hideout.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Carlton North cubby: a compact answer for a small backyard
A modest brief with architectural intent
Nic Owen Architects’ Carlton North project responds to a very different constraint. Houzz identifies it as “A cubby playhouse for a small backyard,” completed in 2013 in Carlton North, Melbourne; the project profile was published on 27 October 2015. The brief called for a small, cost-effective piece of architecture for children alongside a redesigned family garden.
Simple materials, strong connection to the garden
The structure uses plywood and has a floor-to-ceiling glass wall at one end. Green swing doors provide a clear, child-scaled entrance, while a timber boardwalk runs between garden beds and the cubby. Rather than filling the yard with a freestanding object, the design makes the route through the garden part of the experience.
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The cubby’s position on the south boundary was selected to maximise sunlight. That siting decision is especially important in a small yard, where orientation can affect how long the interior remains usable and how much garden is left for other activities.
What makes the compact solution distinctive
This project’s uniqueness is disciplined rather than extravagant. A plywood shell, a glass end wall, coloured doors and a boardwalk produce a recognisable playhouse while preserving garden area. It is a useful precedent for anyone searching for a cubby playhouse for a small backyard: spend design effort on orientation, thresholds and the relationship to planting, not only on adding more internal features.
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Comparing the five projects by the same questions
No single ranking is supported by the project records. The table instead places each example against comparable design questions.
| Project | Defining idea | Relationship to site | Materials or fabrication | Scale and use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kooky Cubby | Organic, cave-like form with tunnels and nooks | Standalone challenge project | Eight digitally printed panels; textured translucent PLA polymer walls; contoured marine-grade plywood floor | Dedicated playhouse |
| MySpace Cubby | Children reconfigure blocks across four levels | Visual connection through translucent enclosure | Tasmanian Oak frame; translucent polycarbonate | Flexible play, furniture and storage system |
| Taringa Treehouse | Tree-integrated elevated play space | Organised around an existing tree and landscape | Project record identifies its cubby-house-informed material character | Lower platform, veranda edge, climbing wall and loft |
| Kids Pod | Theatrical pavilion with changing enclosure | Linked to Hill House by a glazed bridge on a vineyard | Timber skin patterned from Pinot Noir vines; operable steel shutters; red curtain and retractable wall | Bedroom, playroom and bathroom |
| Carlton North cubby | Compact, cost-conscious backyard architecture | South-boundary position, garden beds and boardwalk | Plywood structure; floor-to-ceiling glass wall; green swing doors; timber boardwalk | Small children’s playhouse |
Choosing the right kind of uniqueness for your own cubby
If the priority is imaginative movement
Look to the spatial logic of Kooky Cubby: tunnels, low passages, nooks and changes in ceiling or wall shape can make a small footprint feel expansive. Draw the play actions first, then decide which surfaces need to curve or open.
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If children should control the layout
MySpace Cubby offers the clearest model. Plan for movable elements that can become seats, shelves, screens or storage. Keep the system understandable enough for children to operate, and allow a visible place to park pieces when they are not in use.
If the garden is the main asset
Taringa Treehouse and the Carlton North cubby both make landscape central, though at different scales. A tree, a boardwalk, a veranda edge or a carefully chosen boundary position can do more for a cubby’s identity than decorative cladding.
If the cubby must serve older children or adults too
Kids Pod demonstrates the pavilion approach. A connected room, bridge, shutters and adaptable partitions can support sleeping, reading or family use as well as play. That ambition brings greater design, approval and construction complexity than a simple playhouse, so the brief should state the intended functions from the beginning.
If materials and colour carry the concept
Each project uses material as part of the story: translucent polymer in Kooky Cubby, warm oak and polycarbonate in MySpace, vine-patterned timber and shutters in Kids Pod, and a glass end wall with green doors in Carlton North. Colour or finish works best when it reinforces how the cubby is entered, opened, concealed or connected to the garden, rather than being applied as an afterthought.
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These projects establish a broad design spectrum, from a 2013 compact backyard playhouse to a 2017 digitally fabricated challenge entry and a treehouse feature published in 2017. They show how Australian architects have interpreted the cubby as object, system, landscape intervention and pavilion.
They do not establish current construction prices, a national ranking, universal safety requirements, typical build times or a standard return on investment. Kooky Cubby’s $20,000 sale belongs to that particular 2017 fundraising challenge. The other project records likewise describe individual commissions rather than repeatable retail products. Anyone moving from inspiration to construction should treat the examples as design precedents and obtain site-specific advice, documentation and approvals for the proposed build.
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