All stories about "Design"

We've already sent you to some of London's best design shops for the home. Here's a list of top design destinations and events for the design junkie in search of modern inspiration and historical perspective. After the jump: 400 years of English interiors at the Geffrye Museum in Shoreditch, the newest work of international design stars at the Design Museum along the Thames, and London's only antiques, vintage, and retro department store.

Most of what one needs to know about Finland is easily summed up in just a few lines:
Wintersun: From August to May, the Finnish night lasts twenty-five hours.
Vodka: It's kept on ice in the freezer, and the traditional Finnish breakfast is a half liter of it accompanied by a piece of smoked fish.
Reindeer: They're quick to bite, have a greasy coat, and the whole country is rotten with them.
Linus Torvalds: This king of Linuxland keeps a harem of "virtual" wives and commands a geek army.
Saunas: The Finns sweat out their vodka-and-fish breakfasts at lunchtime saunas with the boss.
Sexy: Finnish law requires all citizens to be lanky sexpots, with shimmering hair and perfect teeth.
Suicide: Finland has Europe's highest suicide rate -- but after death Finns transmigrate into even newer, sexier bodies.

It may be true that you get as much design as you pay for, but there's no reason that travelers with a bit of cash should stay in a dusty, dated Paris hotel room. Non-astronomically priced, clean and modern rooms with a bit of personality and style are increasingly available. There's now no shortage of designy hotels on both banks for those who want to sleep in a well thought-out space. Here's a selection of hotels in Paris for the design-conscious with a budget of less than €200 a night. (You may also want to check out our list of modern and moderate hotels from last year.)

An upcoming book on design will be devoted to "the cultural heart of New York" (in case you don't know, that means Brooklyn!). Brooklyn Modern, due out April 1st, features inside looks at a handful of blogger's Brooklyn abodes: these include Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge and Jonathan Butler of Brownstoner. Looking at the advent of the brownstone over 150 years ago as well as the current interior-design boom, the book focuses on "18 particularly innovative living spaces and the homeowners who designed them." [Cool Hunting]

The Guardian selects the best design hotels under £100 around the world. In Scandinavia there are both Stockholm's Hotel Clarion Sign and Copenhagen's Danhostel, while in Buenos Aires there's Home Hotel. In Sri Lanka, Geoffrey Bawa's Kandalama gets a mention; in Paris it's Hotel La Manufacture; and, in San Francisco, there's the Hotel Kabuki. [The Guardian]

Ever wondered what San Francisco will look like in the year 2108? So has the History Channel. That's why they sponsored the "City of the Future" contest. The challenge asked architects to imagine San Francisco a century from today. IwamotoScott Architecture took home the $10,000 prize, with a "Hydro-Net" design that includes underground tunnels, hydrogen-fueled hover cars, and hilltop steam baths boasting unbeatable views. [Popular Science]

Berlin's gigantic, dirt-cheap apartments are the stuff of urban legend. Expats more acquainted with the exorbitant rents and floorplans measured in centimeters common in London, New York, and Paris are often rushed to our local krankenhäuser (hospitals) after fainting dead away upon getting a gander of their spacious new digs. Even as the dollar drops into the muck, it can still procure a comfortable flop in the city center convenient to transit, shopping, and the hot-bodied waitstaff of the local watering hole. But as noted here and there, furnishing one of these cavernous pads brings challenges of its own.