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David Kohn Architects has completed the refurbishment for a former print works and sweet factory to make the White Building more

The Barking Bathhouse is a temporary spa in east London designed and built by Something & Son more

The Coca-Cola Beatbox, designed by Asif Khan and Pernilla Ohrstedt, is a pavilion at the Olympic Park that can be played like a musical instrument. more

The London Legacy Development Corporation has published plans to create a new major public space that will welcome people to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park from spring 2014. more

Designed by Paul Bernier, this weekend house is set in a natural clearing on top of a rocky outcrop near Bromont, 85km south-east of Montreal in Canada and is made up of 2 volumes, a day block and a night block.

The day block is a U-shaped volume set on a plateau at the top of the outcrop. It houses the shared living spaces, including the kitchen, the dining room, the living room and a reading nook, which is tucked behind the fireplace. The facades on the outside of this U-shape are clad in natural stone and pierced by openings that frame prime views. Floor to ceiling windows line the inside of the U and define a sheltered inner courtyard.

The night block, which includes the master bedroom, consists of a 2-storey stone block that extends over the slope. Here, too, openings have been oriented and sized as a function of the vistas and the sun’s path. A generous window wraps around the southeast corner, for instance, to afford a stunning diagonal view over the woods.

These 2 volumes are connected by a veranda and a fully glazed passageway.

A large roof with an exposed timber frame of Douglas fir covers the entire house. Inside, the sense of a single volume is reinforced by the open space beneath the ceiling, with no partition extending to full height. Rooms that require privacy, like the bathroom in the day block, are capped by low ceilings that set them off as cubes within the space. The bathroom wall, which faces the inner courtyard, is a pivoting screen of frosted glass and steel. This feature ensures the optimal use of natural light and reinforces the notion of a fluid relationship between the spaces.

The architect’s principal idea was that the building should blur into the beauty of its natural environment. Openings allow sight lines that cross through the building. Structural elements like the timber roof, stone walls and galvanized steel columns pass unchanged from the interior to the exterior. Large sliding glass panels ensure an easy flow between indoor and outdoor spaces.