planning resource ukCarbon-neutral house design rejected by local council. Why? 'Cause Frank Lloyd Wright did it before

EPEAT, an eco-label for consumer electronics, has been around for a long time, existing behind the scenes as a business-to-business eco-rating system helping giants like the U.S. Federal government purchase low impact computers. Now, EPEAT is going business-to-consumer, making their bronze, silver and gold ratings publicly available as a reference point for shoppers—for example, did you know that Naoto Fukasawa's Go laptop for Samsung (pictured above) ranks high on the eco-friendly scale?

When news broke last year of Carbon Motors, a company that would build police-specific vehicles from the ground up rather than retrofitting "cop shocks" et al, we thought for sure that such an ambitious undertaking would die in the recession; so we were surprised to read, just this morning, that a deal for Carbon Motors' proposed plant in Indiana is actually underway. And the Connersville location, a state and 250 miles away from Chicago, should be far enough from any Illinois Nazis to stay out

Molecule, by Davide Tonizzo of designD, is an "infinite furniture" system, inspired by the building-block nature of molecules. The system is appropriate for schools, lobbies, airports and offices and can accommodate a wide range of activities from working to relaxing.

Sanrio, Inc (yes, the home of Hello Kitty) is seeking a temporary, full time Art Director/Design Manager for their Global Consumer Products Creative Department. This position is responsible to lead & direct graphic designers to create style guide designs from basic concepts to fully completed design solutions.

The Taser AXON is a "tactical networkable computer" that consists of a camera/microphone unit, a control unit and a small belt-mounted computer. Cops in California's San Jose, beleaguered by charges of police brutality, has begun outfitting officers with the over-the-ear cameras in a trial launched last week, the first of its kind in the U.S.

While there's tons of product options if it's hot drinks you want, there isn't much competition to design devices that make drinks cold, since ice cubes do that job pretty well. But for the boozehound who wants a frosty drink without the adulterated taste, there's always the Helter Skelter Drinks Chiller:

Miami-based designer Bannavis Andrew Sribyatta is the man behind PIE Studio (that's Project Import Export), which "wants to explore the ultimate concept of 'Living Space' in relation to the complexity of nature." Below are three of their pieces slated to hit the market in 2010:

Tim Lewis, furniture and lighting designer from Philadelphia has designed the Strap Chairs and Stools, modeled after the classic American aluminum woven lawn chair. Instead of a lightweight aluminum frame, the seats and backs are made from walnut (with traditional mortis and tenon joinery techniques), then wrapped with nylon straps woven in a fluorescent checker pattern.

As mentioned in my previous post, I have visited Thailand Creative & Design Center (TCDC) in Bangkok, where I also met a lot of emerging designers who showed me some of their work. TCDC runs a support program for emerging Thai designers in order to promote Thai design and culture. "We want to add value to handmade things and small production scales," explains Kum, one of the initiators of the program. "We invite designers from various disciplines to do a workshop with us and make them think mor

We love the hilarity of this project: ensuring the survival of the arts in outerspace by designing individual studiocrafts (with oxygen tanks that are, for some reason, explicitly addressed).

Today is the last day to submit your entry to The Dieline Awards, celebrating the world's best package design. The competition is presented by The Dieline, directory and blog for the package design industry, in collaboration with the Fuse conference . There are over 30 prizes to be won, and all winners will be showcased in Chicago this April.

Trautrimas imagines Cold War military installations through the digital re-imaging of discarded parts from household appliances like coffee pots, electric razors, oil cans and waffle irons. According to Johannson Projects, these "structures are the hypothesized origins of appliances that eventually trickled down to the public as common household goods that came to define the zeitgeist of the era." We're wondering what the flip side might be—something optimistic, utopic, Ant Farm-esque made

The East Coast of the United States was hit by a record amount of snowfall over the weekend, and Core77's home base of New York City ground to a halt. Roughly 1,200 area flights were canceled, and Gotham's unskilled taxi drivers crawled and swerved like they'd never seen snow before. If only, during the winter months, we could get rid of the Crown Vic taxis and replace them with these:

The Tow-n-Stow is a neat idea, and probably most useful if you live in the wilderness and routinely need to haul heavy stuff back to base and then store it (like firewood): It's a watertight container that holds 1,000 pounds, and tips upright to make a lockable outdoor storage unit. Transforming the 100% recyclable unit takes, the company claims, about a minute.