The Modern A Frame

In a fascinating look at this architectural phenomenon, Chad Randl tells the story of the "triangle" house from prehistoric Japan to its lifestyle-changing heyday in the 1960s. Includes an appendix with a complete set of blueprints.

Midcentury spaces made new: A-Frame homes from rustic to ultra-modern, mountain retreats to seaside getaways. The A-Frame home surged in popularity in the 1950s, and has captured the public’s imagination with its playfully modern, steep-sloping roofline ever since. The Modern A-Frame celebrates seventeen diverse accounts of these minimalists cabins reinvented for the twenty-first century. Nostalgic escapes, heritage homes, full-time simplicity, and artists at work categorize the A-frames whose engaging stories are shared. Whether fabricated from a 1960s kit or as a new build via retro inspiration, the variety of styles and homeowners in this photo-driven collection beautifully captures the romance of a classic structure, which beckons to travelers and homebuyers today, just as it did sixty years ago. Perfect for the architectural enthusiast, midcentury-minded designer, or armchair traveler. Ben Rahn has been photographing architecture and interiors for more than twenty years. He founded A-Frame Studio in 2003 out of a desire to combine his love of design with his keen photographic eye. His work has been recognized internationally and has appeared in publications such as Dwell, Wallpaper, Conde Naste Traveller, and more. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

An ethnographic study of a Greek island community’s culture in the face of modern times. Sfakians on the island of Crete are known for their distinctive dress and appearance, fierce ruggedness, and devotion to traditional ways. Konstantinos Kalantzis explores how Sfakians live with the burdens and pleasures of maintaining these expectations of exoticism for themselves, for their fellow Greeks, and for tourists. Sfakian performance of masculine tradition has become even more meaningful for Greeks looking to reimagine their nation’s global standing in the wake of stringent financial regulation, and for non-Greek tourists yearning for rootedness and escape from the post-industrial north. Through fine-grained ethnography that pays special attention to photography, Tradition in the Frame explores the ambivalence of a society expected to conform to outsiders’ perception of the traditional even as it strives to enact its own vision of tradition. From the bodily reenactment of historical photographs to the unpredictable, emotionally-charged uses of postcards and commercial labels, the book unpacks the question of power and asymmetry but also uncovers other political possibilities that are nested in visual culture and experiences of tradition and the past. Kalantzis explores the crossroads of cultural performance and social imagination where the frame is both empowerment and subjection. “In this original, beautifully written, and often moving monograph, Konstantinos Kalantzis has produced a lasting contribution to the anthropological study of contemporary Europe. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, Tradition in the Frame explores with exquisite detail a number of timely themes—the social life of photographs, conflicting tourist and local images of Crete, the performance of gender stereotypes, and the complex tension between tradition and modernity. The author’s ability to view the world through the eyes of natives and foreigners, and to deconstruct visual signs and symbols, is nothing short of stunning. For anyone interested in Europe and the Mediterranean world today, this richly documented and theoretically sophisticated volume is a must read.” —Stanley Brandes “Tradition in the Frame is a richly innovative ethnography focusing on the visual dimensions of modern Cretan mythmaking, and especially on the material reproduction and negotiation of time-honored stereotypes of warrior masculinity. Writing of a society that has largely shifted its economy from shepherding to tourism, Kalantzis incisively demonstrates how the realities of commercial exploitation and socio-political change re-frame familiar images of a society at once proudly central to the symbolism of national identity and yet also still reluctant to accept the merest hint of intrusive authority.” —Michael Herzfeld

Based on long-term ethnographic research in the art worlds of Istanbul and Berlin, The National Frame rethinks the politics of art by focusing on the role of art in state governance. It argues that artistic practices, arts patronage and sponsorship, collecting and curating art, and the modalities of censorship continue to be refracted through the conceptual lens of the nation-state, despite the globalization of the arts. By examining discussions of the civilizing function of art in Turkey and Germany and particularly moments in which art is seen to cede this function, The National Frame reveals the histories of violence on which the production, circulation, and, very understanding of art are predicated. Karaca examines this darker side of art in two cities in which art and its institutions have been intertwined with symbolic and material dispossession. The particularities of German and Turkish contexts, both marked by attempts to claim modern nationhood through the arts; illuminate how art is staked to memory and erasure, resistance and restoration; and why art has been at once vital and unwieldy for national projects. As art continues to be called upon to engage the past and imagine different futures, The National Frame explores how to reclaim art’s emancipatory potential.

Ever wonder why teens can spend entire weekends playing video games but struggle with just one hour of homework? Why we’re addicted to certain websites and steal glances at our smartphones under the dinner table? Or why some people are able to find joy in difficult or repetitive jobs while others burn out? It’s not the experiences themselves but the way they’re structured that matters. All our lives we’ve been told that games are distractions—playful pastimes, but unrelated to success. In Game Frame, Aaron Dignan shows us that the opposite is true: games produce peak learning conditions and accelerated achievement. Here, the crucial connection between the games we love to play and the everyday tasks, goals, and dreams we have trouble realizing is illuminated. Aaron Dignan is the thirty-something founder of a successful digital strategy firm that studies the transformative power of technology in culture. He and his peers were raised on a steady diet of games and gadgets, ultimately priming them to challenge the status quo of the modern workplace. What they learned from games goes deeper than hand-eye coordination; instead, this generation intrinsically understands the value of adding the elements of games into everyday life. Game Frame is the first prescriptive explanation of what games mean to us, the human psychology behind their magnetic pull, and how we can use the lessons they teach as a framework to achieve our potential in business and beyond. Games are a powerful way to influence and change behavior in any setting. Here, Dignan outlines why games and play are such important trends in culture today, and how our technology, from our iPhones to our hybrid cars, primes us to be instinctive players. Game Frame tackles the challenging task of defining games and the mechanics that make games work from several perspectives, then explores these ideas through the lens of neuroscience. Finally, Dignan provides practical tips for using basic game mechanics in a variety of settings, such as motivating employees at work or encouraging children at home, giving readers the tools to develop their own games to solve problems in their everyday lives. Illuminated throughout with a series of real-world examples and hypothetical scenarios, Game Frame promises a crash course in game design and behavioral psychology that will leave the reader—and, by extension, the world itself—more productive. Revolutionary, visionary, practical, and time-tested, Game Frame will change the way you approach life.

Looking to get your A-Frame fix in a fun, new colorful way? Cozy up with The A-Frame Coloring Book for some mid-century mindfulness that celebrates these unmistakable architectural icons! The A-Frame Coloring Book: Volume One features thirteen unique A-Frame cabins from all corners of the United States. Each featured A-Frame includes one interior and exterior coloring page, showcasing each location and its attention to detail, both inside and out. From a ship-inspired cabin perched above the rocky Maine coastline to a sleek, modern masterpiece under the towering redwoods of the Pacific Northwest, this coloring book serves to celebrate these wonderfully unique and picture-perfect homes. What's more, all of the houses that appear in the first volume of The A-Frame Coloring Book are available to rent on short-term vacation rental sites (like Airbnb and VRBO), making each page a potential getaway destination. So get ready to doodle on some of the cutest A-Frames around - and perhaps even plan your next vacation while you do! A-Frames featured in The A-Frame Coloring Book: Volume One: A-FRAME CHALET A-FRAME HAUS THE ALPINE A-FRAME BLACK A-FRAME VERMONT BOHO A-FRAME CEDAR BLOOM A-FRAME INVERNESS A-FRAME PROWHOUSE THE TREEHOUSE TYE HAUS THE VERMONT A-FRAME WHISKEY RIDGE CHALET THE WILSON HAUS

This incredible collection of stunning images will inspire anyone who dreams of creating their very own timber-frame home. Thirty-eight custom-built homes are featured, inside and out, complete with floor plans. Packed with 275 gorgeous color pictures, this book provides furnishing and decorating ideas, including inspirations for decorating the great room, master bedrooms, cozy sitting rooms, elegant dining rooms, and outdoor living spaces. Gorgeous kitchen photos will help you whip up your own culinary creation center. And there are lots of ideas for creating quiet escape nooks, home offices, luxurious baths, and lofty hideaways. This is a must-have for anyone who owns a timber-frame house or remodeled barn, and all who want one.

Simple and beautifully illustrated introduction to the use of reciprocal frame structures in architecture.

An award-winning scholar’s sweeping history of American secularism, from Jefferson to Trump “An essential book for understanding today’s culture wars. Sehat’s clear-eyed and elegant narrative will change how you think about our supposedly secular age.”—Molly Worthen, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill In This Earthly Frame, David Sehat narrates the making of American secularism through its most prominent proponents and most significant detractors. He shows how its foundations were laid in the U.S. Constitution and how it fully emerged only in the twentieth century. Religious and nonreligious Jews, liberal Protestants, apocalyptic sects like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and antireligious activists all used the courts and the constitutional language of the First Amendment to create the secular order. Then, over the past fifty years, many religious conservatives turned against that order, emphasizing their religious freedom. Avoiding both polemic and lament, Sehat offers a powerful reinterpretation of American secularism and a clear framework for understanding the religiously infused conflict of the present.

First published in New Zealand in 1957, Owls Do Cry, was Janet Frame's second book and the first of her thirteen novels. Now approaching its 60th anniversary, it is securely a landmark in Frame's catalog and indeed a landmark of modernist literature. The novel spans twenty years in the Withers family, tracing Daphne's coming of age into a post–war New Zealand too narrow to know what to make of her. She is deemed mad, institutionalized, and made to undergo a risky lobotomy. Margaret Drabble calls Owls Do Cry "a song of survival"—it is Daphne's song of survival but also the author's: Frame was herself misdiagnosed with schizophrenia and scheduled for brain surgery. She was famously saved only when she won New Zealand's premier fiction prize. Frame was among the first major writers of the twentieth century to confront life in mental institutions and Owls Do Cry is important for this perspective. But it is equally valuable for its poetry, its incisive satire, and its acute social observations. A sensitively rendered portrait of childhood and adolescence and a testament to the power of imagination, this early novel is a first–rate example of Frame's powerful, lyric, and original prose.