EVER WANTED TO just shut out the outside world? A team of Polish architects have just the place for you: A house which transforms itself, at the press of a panic button, into an armoured concrete block.

The Safe House, the brainchild of Robert Konieczy at KWK Promes, has two modes. As a home, it is bright and airy, with large windows to take in the view of the Warsaw suburbs, and a spacious verandah with outdoor dining area for those long summer evenings. There’s even an indoor swimming pool – albeit one housed in a separate building and accessed via retractable drawbridge.

But as soon as the first undesirable salesperson or election candidate appears, it’s a very different story. Thick concrete blocks hinge into place across the windows – powered by hidden electronic motors – and a vast steel shutter bars off the front of the building. “The clients’ top priority was to gain the feeling of maximum security in their future house,” according to the architect’s description.

And as if that transformation wasn’t enough, there is also an imposing perimeter wall with gateways that swing closed, leaving not so much as a letterbox open to the outside. You need never receive another unsolicited takeaway menu ever again.