Spiral Garden System Fit for Urbanites

Another awesome concept from IIDA, the Spiral Garden System is a proposal for a sustainable public garden that’s totally self-sufficient. By Yanko Design

Super Flat and Retractable Cord

River Cheng a.k.a. Ho-Tzu designed this super-flat retractable extension cord to prevent tangles. By Yanko Design

Don’t Dial My Number

Remembering phone numbers is hard and although we have contact lists to assist, it can become quite cumbersome navigating huge lists. By Yanko Design

12 of the Year's Best Ideas in Interface Design

The past year brought us stories on everything from tweeting toddler toys and streamlined ATMs to news-reading apps and remote controls that magically change channels with a wave of the hand. By Susanne Labarre

13 of the Best Design Books of 2010

The past year saw dozens of dazzling design books hit the market. Here are 12 to check out. By Alissa Walker

Amusement Parks Stacked Up Like Skyscrapers

Ju-Hyun Kim bills his conceptual Vertical Theme Park as an eco-friendly antidote to the sprawling Six Flags of the worlds. By Suzanne Labarre

Mighty Building Facade Beats Solar Heat With Mechanical Muscles

Decker Yeadon's prototype for an expanding, contracting architectural skin has promising applications in green-building design. By Suzanne Labarre

Hacker Web Design: Words of Wisdom for Building Great Apps

David Kadavy talks about the needs and pain points of would-be (or must-be) designers in the world of web development. By Jolie O'Dell

Advanced walking

Welcome to the future of walking support, so says Andres Sebastian Sanchez. By Yanko Design

Starchitect Norman Foster Reportedly Designing New Apple Campus

Sir Norman Foster, the British starchitect behind London’s iconic Gherkin tower and the master plan of Abu Dhabi’s mega-green Masdar City, reportedly has been selected to design Apple’s new campus in Cupertino. By Suzanne Labbarre

Sign of the Times: A Device That Does Boring Small Talk For You

With Gerard Ralló's conceptual Reiterative Communication Aid, a digital readout replaces predictable speech. By Suzanne Labarre

AU 2010 Exhibition

Here Autodesk's Matt Ratliff, Applications Engineer, demonstrates the industrial designer's dream software/hardware set-up: Alias Sketch on a Wacom Cintiq monitor. By Core77

5 of the Best New User Experiences of 2010

When it comes to user experience, designers and developers must do much more than present their users with a “pretty face” web page. By Jolie O'Dell

Susan Kare: Interview With an Iconic Designer

Susan Kare is the master of making icons iconic. From a mere handful of pixels she has created small-scale graphics that have become part of the visual language of computing. By Mashable

Designers: Here’s the Brief for Project Magazine’s iPad Cover Contest

As part of its launch, Virgin’s first iPad-only magazine, Project, announced a contest to redesign the magazine’s animated cover.

Favorite Mobile News Reader, The Flud

FLUD for iPhone v1.0 Down and Dirty Demo! from Bobby Ghoshal on Vimeo.

Its slick interface has the media gushing so we decided to give it a go. There’s a diverse collection of content already featured in the Flud ecosystem. By Yanko Design

Book Reading Made Haptic And Easy For The Blind

The Haptic Braille is a mouse-like device that’s capable of translating ordinary text into braille on its surface. By Yanko Design

Is All Fair in Love and Web Design?

The implication of the phrase "deadly sin" is certainly rather negative, but just how bad are these sins really? Would we eradicate them all from this world if we could? By ZURB

The Future of Design: Blue Is the New Green

Blue design creates places that are not just neutral in their take, but actually add back to our world. By Co.Design

Qatar's World Cup: Engineering Marvel, PR Nightmare?

If you thought building 12 open-air, air-conditioned stadiums was hard, try shipping them abroad when you're done. And then try to explain why one of your top architects is called Albert Speer. By Co.Design