Signal-Blocking Architecture and the Faraday Home

[Image: "RAM House" by Space Caviar].

An interesting new project by Space Caviar asks, "Does your home have an airplane mode?"

Exploring what it could mean to design future homes so that they offer an optional state of complete electromagnetic privacy, they have put together a "domestic prototype" in which the signal-blocking capabilities of new architectural materials are heavily emphasized, becoming a structural component of the house itself.

[Image: "RAM House" by Space Caviar].

In other words, why just rely on aftermarket home alterations such as WiFi-blocking paint, when you can actually factor the transmission of signals through architectural space into the design of your home in the first place?

[Image: "RAM House" by Space Caviar].

Space Caviar call this "a new definition of privacy in the age of sentient appliances and signal-based communication," in the process turning the home into "a space of selective electromagnetic autonomy."

As the space of the home becomes saturated by “smart” devices capable of monitoring their surroundings, the role of the domestic envelope as a shield from an external gaze becomes less relevant: it is the home itself that is observing us. The RAM House responds to this near-future scenario by proposing a space of selective electromagnetic autonomy. Within the space’s core, Wi-Fi, cellphone and other radio signals are filtered by various movable shields of radar-absorbent material (RAM) and faraday meshing, preventing signals from entering and—more importantly—escaping. Just as a curtain can be drawn to visually expose the domestic interior of a traditional home, panels can be slid open to allow radio waves to enter and exit, when so desired.

The result is the so-called "RAM House," named for those "movable shields of radar-absorbent material," and it will be on display at the Atelier Clerici in Milan from April 14-19.