10 Bizarre and Tragic Celebrity Suicides

 

Most of us go through a stage where we become depressed but, luckily for us, we’ve either found better ways to deal with our issues or we’ve had a support group we were able to turn to. For some of us the phase just passed. For some people, though, the phase doesn’t end, they feel there is no one to turn to and there are no escapes. This list is intended to discuss the celebrities who have committed suicide and whose death was either unknown, not widely acknowledged or forgotten. This list is in no particular order.

#10 - Ruslana Korshunova

July 2, 1987 – June 28, 2008

Ruslana Korshunova happened to be a Kazakh supermodel that had a Russian heritage. She had posed in Vogue and had represented designers such as Vera Wang and Nina Ricci. She was discovered in 2003 and was immediately distinguished by her long, knee-length, chestnut colored hair. Part of what made her suicide so bizarre was the method she chose. June 28, somewhere around 2:30 P.M., Ruslana “fell” out of her ninth-floor balcony, after having watched the movie “Ghost” with a former boyfriend in Manhattan. Friends have said that she was usually a cheerful person and had never shown any signs of distress or feelings of failure, although there were things written on some social networking sites that seemed to suggest otherwise. She at one time stated “Death is a celebration of life…there is hope” and “I’m so lost. Will I ever find myself?” Ruslana Korshunova’s death was ruled as a suicide because the police could find no other witnesses. However, something odd that was noticed at the time of her death was that her trademark hair was considerably shorter, and looked as if it had been cut in haste.

#9 - Mary Kay Bergman

June 5, 1961 – November 11, 1999

I’m sure that everyone on this site is familiar with the popular hit “Southpark”, but maybe not so familiar with this leading lady who contributed to making this show so beloved. Mary Kay Bergman was born in Los Angeles, California, to Jewish parents and was a self-proclaimed nerd. Science fiction and fantasy were two main passions of hers, but she had always been an avid fan of Disney. She not only voiced the parts of Ms. Cartman and Wendy on “Southpark”, but she also was the voice of Timmy Turner in “The Fairly Oddparents” and was the official voice of Snow White for Disney. Bergman had been married for 9 years (a big accomplishment to some, including myself), seemed happy. Until her death, no one had known that she had suffered from chronic and acute depression for a multitude of years, despite having reached many of her goals and achieving a dream profession. Sadly though, on a Thursday night Mary Kay Bergman shot herself in the head. She was found an hour and 20 minutes later by her husband and friend, along with two suicide notes that have not yet been released.

#8 - Ryan Jenkins

February 8, 1977 – August 23, 2009

I’m sure that on this one some may argue this person’s status as a celebrity because they only starred on reality television. Although it’s not nearly the same in status, I am absolutely addicted to reality television, so it’s enough for me. This awful event took place quite recently and although the reasons behind the act are difficult to hear, it was certainly bizarre and shocking enough to bear noting. Ryan Jenkins was a Canadian, born in British Columbia, who was also a self-made millionaire. He appeared on the popular VH1 show “Megan Wants a Millionaire” and went on later to star on “I Love Money”. He won the first place prize, along with $250,000 dollars. “Megan Wants a Millionaire” stopped airing after only a few episodes and “I Love Money” never aired, following the discovery on August 15, 2009 of the body of Jasmine Fiore. She was a former model who met Ryan in a Las Vegas casino, married him two days later and was brutally killed shortly thereafter. Fiore was found in a suitcase with no teeth and her fingers had been cut off. She had been strangled, and her body had been crushed, mutilated and beaten. Had she not had breast implants her identity might never have been discovered. Five days later, after an intense search had begun, Jenkins hanged himself with a belt in the room of a motel in Canada. The picture above is of Jenkins and Fiore in happier times.

#7 - Paula Goodspeed

1971 – 2008

Any readers who watch “American Idol” are sure to be familiar with Paula Goodspeed. Paula was a devoted fan of “American Idol” and especially of Paula Abdul. She had auditioned to be on the show to meet her idol and in the hopes of becoming infamous. She achieved infamy, but sadly for the wrong reasons. It was said that because of her outlandish fashion and flat audition she was rejected, and that she was ridiculed for having braces. Five months later Goodspeed would write on a social networking website that auditioning may have been a mistake and that reading fans comments about her were hurtful. As a consequence of her very serious crush on Paula (Goodspeed identified as being gay), an audition gone wrong, rejection and cruel remarks from her peers, Paula Goodspeed was found outside the home of Paula Abdul having killed herself with an overdose on prescription pills.

#6 - Brynn Hartman

April 11, 1958 – May 22, 1998

This was a widely publicized story that happened quite some time ago. Brynn Hartman was the third wife of famous actor and comedian Phil Hartman and the third time, in this case, was anything but a charm. Most of us will recognize Phil Hartman from the long running television show “Saturday Night Live”, where actors are known to improv a lot of their lines. Brynn was a former model who had a history of drug and alcohol abuse throughout their marriage, as well as behavioral problems. No-one knows if it was their two children, or Phil’s undying love for Brynn, but he was determined to make this marriage work. It ended up costing him his life. On the evening of May 27, Brynn and Phil had one of many arguments about her drug usage. Phil then went to sleep, and was later shot by a high and intoxicated Brynn. Brynn then confessed the murder to two people before she shooting herself in the head, taking her own life. Phil was shot twice in the head and once in the side and is believed to have died instantly. There was speculation that Andy Dick had provided Brynn Hartman with the cocaine she took that night, spawning her psychotic behavior, but he denies those claims to this day.

 

#5 - Elliott Smith

August 6, 1969 – October 21, 2003

Elliott Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and lived for a long time in Portland, Oregon. Elliott had a gift for creating music that took you to another place and his voice was totally unique. He was best known for having a large role in the creation of the soundtrack for “Good Will Hunting”, and for an Academy Award nomination for his song “Miss Misery”. Elliott had had suicidal tendencies before, having tried to jump off a cliff while drunk, only to have a tree break his fall. While in Portland he began to dabble in drugs. Following an argument with his girlfriend in late October, Smith was found in the kitchen with a knife in his chest after his girlfriend heard him scream. Elliott Smith died at 1:36 P.M.

#4 - Jonathan Brandis

April 13, 1976 – November 12, 2003

Jonathan Brandis was born in Danbury, Connecticut, and began his film career at age 5. He starred in one of my favorite childhood films “The Neverending Story II: The Next Chapter”, as well as the film “Ladybugs”, with the late Rodney Dangerfield. Although those movies formed my biggest impression of him, it seems Brandis was most known for his role on “SeaQuest”, a television show created by Stephen Spielberg. It is in SeaQuest that he became a teen idol. Friends of the actor said he seemed to be depressed about his lack of a career, despite the fact that he was working on a film in his directorial debut, as well as other promising things in the works. Jonathan Brandis hanged himself on the evening of November 11th and died in the hospital the next day.

#3 - Andrew Koenig

August 17, 1968 – February 2010

Andrew Koenig was best known as the character “Boner” on the sitcom hit “Growing Pains”, which was one of my favorites as a kid. He also played The Joker in a short film based on the “Batman” series, but otherwise didn’t have too much of an extensive resume. Koenig was said to mostly enjoy working behind the scenes and he was deeply involved in human rights. In February 2010 Koenig went to Canada to see the Olympics and never returned. He was later found hanged in Vancouver.

 

 

 

#2 - Dana Plato

November 7, 1963 – May 8, 1999

Dana Plato was born in Moore, Oklahoma, and was best known for her role as Kimberley on “Diff’rent Strokes”. She was let go from the show because of an unplanned pregnancy. Not able to reach the status she wanted, she became involved in darker pastimes, and was arrested for armed robbery in 1991. She got breast implants and appeared in “Playboy” in the hopes of regaining stardom. She later moved in to films of a more erotic nature. She appeared on “The Howard Stern Show” the day before her death and claimed she had been sober for 10 years. Callers called to defend her and commend her on turning her life around, but Dana went on to overdose on pills the following day in a vehicle outside of her fiancé’s mothers’ house. Sadly, Dana’s son also committed suicide last month (May, 2010).

 

#1 - Peg Entwistle

February 5, 1908 – September 16, 1932

Peg Entwistle may be the oldest on the list but her story certainly isn’t the least interesting. Born in Port Talbot, Wales, UK, her dream, like so many others, was to become an actress. She started out on Broadway and went on to be known as a comedienne. Her last film was called “Thirteen Women” and, apparently, received very poor reviews. Upset by the comments of the critics, as well as the greatly reduced screen time featuring her, Peg walked up the hill featuring the famous Hollywood sign, climbed atop it and jumped off. Strangely enough, the following day a letter came in the mail for Entwistle offering her a role in a play about a woman who commits suicide.

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Top 10 Compositions of the 20th Century

 

The 20th Century heralded a new world, one with more defined nations, laws and statutes. It saw the invention of many great things, which have made life significantly easier for most of us. It is, however, common opinion that musical tradition has ceased to be creative – that we have stopped creating and just embraced the works of old. This list aims to disprove this and extol the many relatively unknown works composed after 1900.

#10 - Ionization

Edgard Varèse (1933)

Varèse was a French composer of electronic music, exploiting the new timbres that were created by the popularizing of electricity. He explored timbres, rhythm and dynamics, creating a rather barbaric and often percussive sound.

No composition can reflect Varèse’s style as much as Ionization, composed for 13 percussionists. Amongst the instruments are conventional orchestral bass drums and snare drums, and also unique instruments like the lion’s roar and even fire sirens. This results in an extraordinary sound world, full of unprecedented possibilities and combination.

#9 - Zyklus

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1959)

Stockhausen composed extremely similarly to Varèse (something I just realized when I was ranking up the pieces). He, however, also flirted with the ideas of aleatoric music (see Lutosławski) and serialism (see Berg).

Zyklus is, also, a piece for percussion. The title is German for ‘Circle’, which came from the interesting way the music is to be read. The score can be read from any page, to any direction, and in whatever way the page is set (you can read it upside down).

#8 - Rhapsody in Blue

George Gershwin (1924)

George Gershwin is a quintessentially American composer. He frequently uses the Jazz and Blues scales in his music, instead of the Diatonic scale used by most composers of the Western classical tradition.

His Rhapsody in Blue, a Piano concerto with backing by a Jazz band, is his Magnum Opus, a work that he will be forever remembered by. It has frequently been used as a reference to the 1920′s, the Jazz age, where money was plentiful and life was good. This piece is nostalgic of better times past.

#7 - Einstein on the Beach

Philip Glass (1976)

Glass is probably the most recent composer in this list – he continues to compose prolifically. His style has been described as minimalist, reflecting the slowly evolving ostinato in his music. His music also reflects a strong grounding in counterpoint in the style of Mozart and Bach.

His opera Einstein on the Beach lasts 5 hours with no intermission, so long that audiences are free to enter and leave as they please. This opera is distinct in that it has no story plot. Instead, it shows various scenes, all alluding to parts of Einstein’s theories and life. When premiered, this opera promised to revolutionize the face of opera, and this it did.

#6 - A Polish Requiem

Krzysztof Penderecki (1984)

Penderecki is a composer that focuses on extended techniques and unique playing styles on conventional instruments and structures. He is possibly best known for his astounding ‘Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima’. However, as this was already mentioned in another list, I chose his Polish Requiem.

By choosing a Requiem Mass, Penderecki merges one of the oldest form of music (the first Requiem was by Ockeghem in the Renaissance period) with extended playing techniques. He uses wails and short blasts from the choir and voices, instead of the traditional SATB choruses. The addition of a Polish text in the end causes this to be a truly unique composition.

 

#5 - Wozzeck

Alban Berg (1922)

In the late 19th century, Arnold Schönberg devised a new composing technique that threw away centuries of harmony and counterpoint – the Serialist style. Followers became known as the Second Viennese School, with composers such as Anton Webern. Berg, however, is the composer that brought serialism to popular culture.

Wozzeck is an opera based on a surprisingly unheroic plot. What makes this a major stepping-stone for musical history is that this is the first major Opera from the 20th century style, one that incorporates the advant garde ideas of the period. The opera became so popular that it allowed Berg to live his life off royalties.

#4 - Fanfare for the Common Man

Aaron Copland (1942)

Copland composes in a distinct style from fellow American George Gershwin. While Gershwin has a style more suited for cities and clubs, Copland incorporates more rural material, including purely American factors, such as cowboys.

The Fanfare for the Common Man was written when Copland was approached to write a fanfare for the opening of the radio. When asked for a dedication, Copland decided to dedicate this to the Common Man, the most pushing factor for America’s victory in WWII.

#3 - 4’33”

John Cage (1952)

Cage was a revolutionary – he pioneered the use of unconventional instruments such as keys and paper. One of his most striking innovations is the prepared piano, where he puts in washers and nails into the piano, causing a dry and percussive sound.

4’33” is essentially what it is, 4 minutes and 33 seconds of music. The music that is heard, however, is not played by the performer. Instead, the performer goes on stage and times the 4 minutes and 33 seconds. The listener hears the accidental sounds in the concert hall, whether it be the air-conditioning or the cars outside. What is thought to be silent is no longer silent, as reflected in the Zen teachings that inspired Cage.

#2 - Concerto for Orchestra

Witold Lutosławski (1954)

Lutosławski was one of Poland’s greatest composers, standing alongside Chopin and Penderecki. Lutosławski was the first to be awarded Poland’s greatest honour, the Order of the White Eagle, after independence from the Soviet regime. He specializes in aleatoric (chance) music, where each performance would be different.

The Concerto for Orchestra is inspired from Belá Bártok’s own Concerto for Orchestra. He mimics the Baroque form Concerto Grosso, interweaving Polish tunes. The most striking part of this work is the atonal nature of it: it does not conform to major or minor keys. He integrates this new style with the old forms of Passacaglia and Toccata, amongst others and in so doing creates a unique sound world.

#1 - The Rite of Spring

Igor Stravinsky (1913)

Stravinsky is one of the most influential composers ever, being sometimes called ‘Bach on the wrong notes’. He was voted as one of Times’ 100 people of the century. He draws styles and influences from a wide range of composers, composing in serialist forms, neo-classical forms and neo-baroque forms. Stravinsky’s sorting of timbres are interesting too – his ballet Les Noces has an accompaniment of four pianos.

The Rite of Spring is an archetypal representation of Succès de scandale. On the premier, Camille Saint-Saëns stormed out after the first note, citing the high register of the Bassoon to be a misuse of the instrument. All through the performance, the audiences booed the performers, with its primitive rhythm and scandalous outfits. The crowd later attacked the performers. However, this piece soon gained popularity and appealed to audiences, causing this ballet to be one of the most influential works composed.

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Hollywood’s 15 Worst Kept Secrets

Hollywood gossip is something that has become so pervasive in our culture that we tend to take it all for granted. Whether we tend to listen to it all or shun it like the plague, we end up hearing more than our fair share, and stowing it away in memory without even realizing it. Sometimes, the really good gossip slips through the mainstream and get slowly forgotten by the few people that ever knew about it to begin with. These are some of those bits of information; these are 15 of Hollywood’s worst kept secrets.

1 - Tim Allen Served Time

Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor of Home Improvement fame was supposed to be the all-American dad — one of the good guys. He was your average Joe who spent more time in the garage than anywhere else, had a loving wife and a house full of kids that he had to teach the ways of the world. What Tim Allen’s character never taught his kids on the show, however, was how to get caught in an airport, smuggling over 1.4 pounds of cocaine in his luggage. This was in 1978, and he plea-bargained a potential life-sentence down to a few years by giving away the names of his suppliers, and got out on parole 28 months later.

2 - Silvester Stallone Starred in a Porn Movie

The trailer above was made back in 1970, a full six years before Stallone would become Rocky, and it was originally released under the title The Party at Kitty and Stud’s. Once Rocky broke the box office, the movie was re-released as The Italian Stallion in an effort to grab more sales. When asked about the movie later, Stallone said that he was “starving” when he made it, and that he was “desperate.” You don’t have to play coy with us, Sly.

3 - Jack Nicholson’s “Sister” Was His Mother

Jack Nicholson, one of Hollywood’s greats, was born in 1936. Most of us know the little trivia tidbit that he was born the son of a showgirl, but nobody ever seems to realize or remember that the showgirl he was born to wasn’t the same woman he called “mom” all his life. His grandmother insisted on taking the him and raising him as her own, to allow his mother (a bit of a floozy) to continue her work. His real mother became his sister overnight, and nobody ever told him — until a journalist from Time magazine broke the silence and informed him during an interview in 1974. By that time, both women had already passed away.

 

4 - Eric Stoltz Was the Original Marty McFly

Eric Stoltz hasn’t spent a great deal of time in the limelight, but some of us do still remember some pretty great roles of his; roles like Martin Brundle in The Fly II, Danny in Memphis Belle, Simon in The Prophecy and our favorite, Lance in Pulp Fiction. Now he’s back in the spotlight with his role as Daniel Graystone in SyFy’s new BSG precursor, Caprica. Inventing the Cylons is a pretty good bullet point on any guy’s resume, but back in 1985 he was still just a newbie on set, and Robet Zemeckis booted him from the role of Marty McFly after six weeks of filming when Michael J. Fox agreed to take the part.

 

5 - Don King Killed Two Men, Did Time

Don King gets a lot of press for being, well, Don King. He’s got the support of some heavy-hitters (pun intended), but he’s also come to be known as something of a bastard by those who know him best. One of the little stories that tends to get forgotten involves two incidents in King’s past: he shot one guy in the back as he was trying to rob one of his gambling houses back in 1953, and then stomped another guy to death because he owed him $600. Nice guy, eh?

 

6 -  Winona Ryder is Naturally Blonde

You gotta love Winona. She’s the bad girl who’s not the bad girl; she’s cute, bubbly, dark, light, shoplifts with the best (and worst) of ‘em and rolls with the punches. She played roles in some of the best movies of our time, including Edward Scissorhands and BeatleJuice. What most of us never stop to think about, given the fact that she’s nearly always appeared as a brunette (and a good one at that), is that Winona is actually a blonde. For those who never had an inkling, watching Edward Scissorhands again with this knowledge is like flipping the world upside-down.

 

7 - Nicole Richie’s Real Dad Was a Member of Lionel’s Band

Nicole Ritchie being Lionel Ritchie’s kid was always one of those things you just tend to forget about. The names match up, but little else does, and we sort of just make it work in our heads. Most people never stop to question it, and when they do, they find ways to justify it in their heads that they’re father/daughter instead of checking to be sure. Fact is, Nicole is Lionel’s adopted daughter; her mother was a bit of a deadbeat who worked wardrobe for Prince, and her biological father was actually a former percussionist in Lionel’s own band.

 

8 - Janet Jackson Was Secretly Married for Eight Years

People elope all the time; it’s much more common than most of us realize. When an individual as famous as Janet Jackson does it, and manages to keep it a secret for eight years; well that’s an accomplishment. Apparently she had to keep her marriage a complete secret because she wanted to keep it from her father, who we all know is not the greatest guy on earth. She and her husband, Rene Elizondo, had to act like “close friends” the entire time. It was his hands in the photo shoot above. In 2000, Rene had officially had enough of the secret life, and since Janet wouldn’t budge, he filed for divorce. It got pretty ugly after that point, and since he was suing her for millions, we’re pretty sure her father found out anyway.

 

9 - Charlize Theron Watched Her Mother Kill Her Father

Charlize Theron is South African by birth, and lived there her entire young life. She led a somewhat normal life into her pre-teens, but then things changed a bit. Her father was an abusive alcoholic, and her mother was the chief punching bag around the house. When Charlize was 15, her father came home especially drunk one night. A scuffle broke out and she witnessed her mother pull a gun and shoot her dad dead. At least this makes it a bit easier to understand how she can play such messed up roles so well — and if the picture of her from Monster scared you a bit, here’s a nicer one to reset the memory.

 

10 -Tobey Maguire’s Father Is a Convicted Bank Robber

Tobey Maguire, born Tobias Vincent Maguire, was named partly after his father, Vincent. When Tobey was a struggling teen actor back in 1993, his dad was a struggling regular Joe. A regular Joe who got the hair-brained idea in his head to rob a bank in Reseda, California. The irony screams on this one, and Tobey has tried his hardest to keep this one of the least talked about topics in his life. If only he had been Spider Man a decade earlier, he could have stopped the whole thing from ever happening.

 

11 - Mark Wahlberg’s Living on Borrowed Time

It’s pretty common knowledge that Mark Wahlberg is either blessed or just among the luckiest guys on earth by natural circumstances. Either way you cut it, the guy has made out pretty well time after time, despite beginning his public life as Marky Mark (an unforgivable sin). What most people don’t know is that the morning of September 11, 2001, Wahlberg was a ticket-holding passenger on one of the planes that struck the World Trade Center. He, on the other hand, was miles away attending a film festival in Toronto. He was invited at the very last minute by some friends who happened to be there, and he missed his flight. Lucky is an understatement for this guy.

 

12 - Oprah Had a Baby When She Was 14

Oprah is known for many things, but having a kid at 14 is not one of them. Apparently she was a bit of an underaged harlot, and told her best friend at the time that she had no idea who the father could have been, since the list of possible donors was relentlessly long. Really Oprah? We always thought the whole 9000 Penises bit felt a little too natural.

 

13 - Alanis Morissette Likely Wrote “You Oughta Know” About Dave Coulier

In 1993, Dave Coulier was Uncle Joey on Full House, and Alanis Morisette was just getting her feet under her in the music business. Somehow, they started dating. The relationship went pretty sour due to work schedules and some bad communication, among other things (who would have guessed Uncle Joey was such a stud?) and then it fell apart. In 1995, Alanis released Jagged Little Pill — and it was “You Oughta Know” that really hit the public like a punch to the face. The lyrics were crystal clear, angsty, and just plain pissed off. What nobody realized at the time was that those lyrics were very likely to be directed at Dave Coulier, and to this day Alanis has never denied these claims.

 

14 - Woody Harrelson’s Father Was a Hitman

Woody Harrelson is a badass. He’s a fantastic actor, a hilarious guy, and one of the few folks in Hollywood that stays somewhat down to earth throughout the fame. One thing that people don’t usually know about Woody is that his father was actually a convicted hitman. He was arrested in 1979 after assassinating a federal judge in San Antonio, Texas. Kind of gives a whole new meaning to Natural Born Killers, doesn’t it?

 

15 - The Story of Alan Smithee

Hollywood’s been around for a long time now, and the cultural wall that’s been built up around it goes nowhere but up. In the long, long time that Tinseltown has grown and flourished, it’s gathered some strange traditions. One of them is called Alan Smithee. Originally named Al Smith, the persona was concocted by film-makers who wanted a way to sign movies that they didn’t want to sign their own name on when they became disgusted with the finished product. Often times, it was due to a director losing creative control over a film. When it happens, it’s roiling, and the director has the option of going to the Guild and requesting that he be allowed to sign anonymously in protest. The number of Hollywood films with Alan Smithee listed as director is surprisingly long — films such as The Birds II: Land’s End, the segment in Twilight Zone: The Movie in which an actor died, Death of a Gunfighter, the pilot episode of MacGyver; and the television-edited versions of some major films like Heat, Dune, Rudy and Scent of a Woman. The name Alan Smithee was officially retired in 2000, probably because the list was getting so long that people were beginning to think Alan was a real director. Now disgruntled film-makers have to come up with their own pseudonyms when they don’t want their name on a finished product.

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15 Fantastically Futuristic Plant Growing Design Concepts

Not all of us own land for farming, but even urban dwellers can grow gardens and plants. There are more and more fantastic green living concepts being designed for people who want to try out their green thumb. Here are 15 fantastically futuristic plant growing design concepts.

One Pot, Two Lives

 

The planter and fish tank work together to make your fish and your plant healthier. The system works by the fish poo acting as a moist fertilizer for the plant. The filter system helps to maintain neutral PH quality in the water for the fish while extending the watering period by about one week for the plant. One Pot, Two Lives was created by designers Sheng-Zhe Feng and Ling-Yuan Chou.

Urb Garden

 

Urb Garden by Xavier Calluaud allows people who do not have space for traditional horizontal gardens to indulge in gardening. Vertical food gardens encourage urban dwellers to grow their own food. It comes with a self-contained drip watering system, keeping the plants hydrated. It was also designed for organic recycling to act as plant fertilization.

PC Green Computing Concept

 

Designer Luis Luna created this green computer concept design called “O.” The project was inspired by the oxygen and the photosynthesis cycle, trying to reduce the amount of CO2 that computers generate. This CPU is both decorative and meant to encourage a green thinking lifestyle for computer users.

Kitchen Garden & Moss Bathmat

 

Designer La Chanh Nguyen came up with both of these green living concepts. The Kitchen Garden basically grows over the pot holding kitchen utensil and provides a vertical garden. The chef can cut some fresh aromatic herbs as needed. How about a moss bathmat? Moss Carpet utilizes the humidity of the bathroom as well as water dripping off a person to stay watered. It would also provide a very different feeling under your feet than most people experience when stepping out of the shower or tub.

 

Office Partition & Foot Rest

 

Having plants in the office is not a new idea, but designers Jinsun and Seonkeum Park have a couple of plant growing concepts that you have doubtfully seen in the office yet. For those of you trapped in the dreaded cubicle, perhaps office life would seem a bit less bleak with a Breathing Partition? They claim it will bring an ever-lasting oasis to an otherwise dull and dreary office environment. Not for you? Then how about a grass foot rest to allow a feeling of nature under your bare feet?

 

Le Petit Prince

Le Petit Prince was designed by Martin Miklica and was one of the 2009 Electrolux Design Lab Competition winners. This intelligent robotic greenhouse concept was designed to help with future exploration and expanding population on Mars. The four-legged pod can carry and tend to a plant inside its glass container. It also can send wireless communication to other greenhouse robots, allowing them to learn from each other.

 

Ecohabitare

 

If you don’t have the farming land for a garden, surely you have enough space to hang a “picture?” Ecohabitare is a vertical garden designed by Daniele Adamo and Ravel Casela. Made from flat plates manufactured from recycled packages, this portable vertical garden takes 20 minutes a day to harvest and irrigate. The fertilized soil only needs changed once a year when you add new seeds. It requires about 9.8 feet or 3 meters of wall space and is best suitable for growing chives, parsley, tomato, basil, mint, bold, strawberry and rosemary.

 

Air-conditioning Curtain / Vertical Planter

 

This air conditioning curtain concept was designed by Laura Boffi. “Fresco Di Lana” is made from wool and meant to be kept wet via a water pump. The air-conditioning curtain could perhaps be considered swag except it also functions as a vertical garden. The wet wool filters hot air, cooling it as it enters the house. The wet wool provides pockets in which to grow your food, flowers, or plants indoors.

 

Envi Urban Waste Management

 

Designer Julien Bergignat created Evni, one of 58 projects that was shortlisted for the 2009 BraunPrize competition. Envi is a foresight urban dustbin, promoting composting from biodegradable waste. The concept design shows the benefits of urban recycling in which the waste turns into compost for the plant it carries.

 

Refrigerator That Grows Plants

 

Designer Hanna Sandström worked with Green Fortune & Whirlpool to come up with a refrigerator that will nurture a seed into a plant. It’s meant to grow herbs and organic greens that you might normally purchase. Although still in concept design stage, the system should automatically water and give light to the refrigerator garden. Not possible? Once upon a time, the same thing was said about ice spitting out the refrigerator door. Growing plants in your frig would give garden fresh a whole new meaning.

 

Ekokook

 

Designer FALTAZI came up with Ekokook, one of the coolest kitchen concept systems ever invented. You can watch the video below whether you understand French or not and see it in action. Ekokook does it all, from use and re-use of your solid waste, liquid waste, organic waste, oh…and cook too. It has a combo fridge/freezer, steam oven, and two-tier dishwasher. Non-smelly waste is placed into a bin and compacted into briquettes. The double sink collects water that is filtered to be reused on the plants hanging above it. Organic waste is taken care of by earthworms and then further recycled into food for indoor and outdoor plants.

 

Volksgarden Hydroponics

 

Volksgarden is not a concept design but a reality of an effective hydroponic garden on wheels. It’s a ferris wheel ride for plants, growing up to 80 plants at once, taking 45-50 minutes to complete a rotation, spinning 24/7. The unit only takes up 1/3 of the floor space used by a conventional flat garden. Omega Garden Technology claims Volksgarden yields three to five times the comparable weight per watt average per harvest. This seems like a great way to grow your own food . . . or weed.

Home Farming

 

Philips design completed a project on how we might eat and source our food in 15-20 years from now. This Home Farming concept is a self-contained farm for growing plants and raising fish. This vertical garden is a step beyond those above as you would also be able to provide meat with your veggies. Below is a video of their design probe looking at the future of food..

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