Abstract
Garside groups are combinatorial generalizations of braid groups which enjoy many nice algebraic, geometric, and algorithmic properties. In this article we propose a method for turning the direct product of a group $G$ by $\mathbb{Z}$ into a Garside group, under simple assumptions on $G$. This method gives many new examples of Garside groups, including groups satisfying certain small cancellation condition (including surface groups) and groups with a systolic presentation. Our method also works for a large class of Artin groups, leading to many new group theoretic, geometric and topological consequences for them. In particular, we prove new cases of $K(\pi,1)$-conjecture for some hyperbolic type Artin groups.