Casa Não Casa

Pedro Campos Costa

“The mirror has no memory, and cannot retain an image unless it is applied to its surface. And, unlike the photographic negative it is incapable of multiplying the image reflected in its surface – unless that surface is fragmented and its integrity destroyed.” - Robert Hopper

The CASA NÃO CASA is a solar house, invisible in the landscape
It’s a house that blurs in the landscape and at the same time a Solar house. All the façade turns to south and roof is made with PV CELLS. We achieved this with a new technology called PV bifacial cells, that produce energy in the two sides, produce by Origin Energy Solar Pty Ltd. In that sense we put mirror that not only duplicates the energy efficiency of this but also creates the image of invisibility that we were looking for the architecture integration in the landscape.

The project wants to create a new dynamic opening new ways of seeing this possibility of the PV panels not only as an ugly and boring structure without design and not integrated with the architecture. In this sense the geometry of the pyramids of the facade and the geometry of the house were created to try to achieve a optimal solar exposition, and to gain more sun hours. The use of bifacial PV cells makes possible the idea of the house that disappears in the landscape and at the same time creates more efficiency in the Bifacial PV cells.

The blur effect can be seen in the rendering of the unfolded facade with the mirror, that is a simulation in the site where the house could be build. The question of the investment in term of the new Portuguese law can be seen in the diagrams. The section shows how this system could be build and we also show an image of the bifacial PV cells and a small scheme of how it works.

The Casa não Casa hides itself behind mirrors. Beak-shaped mirrors that don’t always reflect what one sees. It lengthens mimics, disguises, copies, hides but deforms. The concept of invisibility is also question the nowadays complex search for identity; thought architecture and the traditional standing allow housing. Despite the impossibility of retaining an image in a mirror, we turn to mirrors to see ourselves. To see what we look like. The image we then have of ourselves is not retained, it probably isn’t real, but it is a reflection and it is the image that helps building our identity.

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