disapointing.

Congrats to all the winners!

NOT COOL! you were only supposed to enter one contest and the people pictured in the first photo entered SCapts too!! pfft... the rules on this contest are so freaking stupid.

Congratulations all!

Meg,
It was 100% ok to enter more than one of the different contests. We had several crossover entrants across the sites and all were ok'd by the Contest Master in NY.

Why do people keep claiming there was this 'rule'?

Congratulations you guys! You all deserved it, and in my opinion, the right people won! I absolutely covet that storage/media wall. COVET. It was a brilliant idea that was also well-executed.

that “rule” was originally posted somewhere, because we had wanted to enter our kitchen as well, but the wording of the (original) rules made it sound like we should choose either/or.

Janel, it was asked that people only enter one of the contests, specifically on March 27...

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/small-cool-2007-news/triple-crown-contest-alert-020102

to quote,

"We urge you to spread the word and check them out. (Please note that we are asking people to only enter one contest, so choose the one you feel best about). "

But i guess the rules are really just suggestions?

^ thank you.

if it was okay'ed then it should have been publicized. its just not fair... just like people linking to more pictures and going over the word limit.

i think you're right Neujeramic - just suggestions :/

Neujeramic and all,

Thanks for your feedback and for linking to Maxwell's post - it is helpful to see how this issue arose, since the limitation to one entry per contest was not included in the rules and I, for one, did not know where that impression was coming from.

When the question of multiple submissions came up during the entry period, Jill, the contest master made the ruling that it was ok.

Apologies to all who feel they would have entered another contest - hopefully you will give it a go next time around.

Thanks for your input - it helps us improve our contests with each one we do.

while you're at it, you may want to reconsider the name of the contest: how about "mount your tv on the wall and hide your crap somewhere"?

This entry is totally consistent with the rules as I understand them, including the Maxwell quote above. That refers to the "triple crown"--kitchen, tech, nursery. You only got one shot at one of those. But nothing precluded someone from entering both the tech contest and one of the regional contests.

So, yes, Kimberly, you had to pick either tech or kitchen. But nothing stopped you from entering your whole apartment in the regional contest, like Kelly & Gregory did.

of course it's lovely to tell us now -- that is NOT how the rule made it sound.

That sure is the way it sounds to me. If you thought it was ambiguous, you could have asked for clarification before the deadline.

At any rate, whether or not you feel wronged because you didn't enter in Kitchen, you lost the Tech contest fair and square, and your comments in this thread, about the tech winners, really make you look like a sore loser (to put it kindly).

Kudos to everyone who entered! It is so helpful to see everyone's tech setups!

of course we are sore losers. our entry was totally distriguishable and different from most everyone that entered, being that it was an actual total designed system.
if you look at other contestant pages, you will see that i’ve left positive comments for nearly all of them -- and i’m not normally a negative person. i can’t help but feel a little cheated, though, being that our entry was more than plopping the tv on the wall and hiding our components away.
3 out of the other 5 contestants listed us as a favorite ... we thought that surely counted for something.

and please don’t save yourself the time of “putting it kindly” - i know we’re sore losers. and i’m very disappointed in the judging for this contest. that’s it.

and - congrats to the other winners. although i think the rules were bent slightly for them, kelly and greg’s system is truly a masterpiece - gorgeous in every way.

All the inconsistencies and execptions in the competition rules are really hard to keep track of. Between extending the deadline, allowing some entries getting extra voting days, people posting links to entire photo albums and now this, I'm really disappointed.

First place looks classy but isn't. The classy thing to do (as a professional designer) is not to enter these kind of contests.

But again, it looks great.

LOL - I love AlexHoogeveen.

I'm kind of torn here. On one side I do think first place is well deserved to the winner, but on the flip side it was a professional job and it seems like it's in bad taste for them to get the reward. Maybe it should instead be donated to a charity? It's not like this contest didn't already give them quite a bit of free advertisement.

And Kimberly, I understand your frustration, I would have given Randall and you first and second place and left the actual first place as just an honorable mention... Maybe I'll be a jude next year or something ;D

thanks dear! :)

yawn. I can't believe this one was the winner. And I'm not surprised they cheated. These two are absolutely DESPERATE to promote their architectural firm.

Explain again how they cheated?

Wow Anne, did you help with the poorly written rules?

no kidding. if so many people (besides anne) feel this way than the rules were obviously misleading.

and if ANYONE for one second believes that video was made especially for this contest ... good gravy.

Ok. It looks like the rules were misleading at best, and changed at worst.
But I still don't see how that is Kelly & Gregory's fault! They obviously thought you could submit to more than one contest and did. If it was against the rules it would be up to the judges to disqualify them.

And I don't really see why they are being disparaged for being an architect (or 2?) and designing their condo the way they wanted it. That's sure as heck what I'd do if I was an architect!

i don't think it's their fault at all, and like you said, of course it's their right to design something they love. and it is gorgeous!
it does sort of seem like a cheap shot to enter a contest like this when they probably should be competing with much bigger fish.

If I was an architect I'd buy the first place prize.

I didn't write the rules and I don't know Kelly and Gregory from Adam, I just don't think this criticism is fair. Actually it smells a lot like sour grapes to me.

The rules were the rules. Either Kelly and Gregory understood them as written and entered accordingly, or misinterpreted them and decided to take the chance, or didn't read them, I don't know, but none of it amounts to cheating. Even if the rules said you could only enter one of the 7 contests, period, and K&G tried to enter two, I wouldn't consider that cheating. It's up to AT to enforce its own rules.

For example, Kimberly has said that she submitted four photos instead of three with her tech entry. AT published only three. AT enforcing its own rules. I don't consider Kimberly a cheat for sending in an extra photo. Frankly, I don't even consider her a cheat for linking to an extra photo in the comments to her entry, but some people might.

Now, whether as designers they had any business entering the contest? You know, I totally agree with those who've criticized their professionalism in that regard. But that's a separate issue and doesn't make them cheaters if this is their residence.

^ fair enough.
and if anyone (including AT) thinks i was cheating by linking to an external photo, then flame away. i had no idea that might be considered cheating since i didn't see a reference to it in the rules.

and some of it is sour grapes - i've already said that.
if this contest was really judged on what AT claims to stand for, we should've placed in this contest. maybe that's snotty to say, but i really think it's true.

Hi All,

God bless America!!! Speak your mind baby!!!

We are extremely greatful to the AT staff who put all this together, it's been a rollercoaster ride this past small cool month, we can only imagine all the work that went it to it.

We'd like to congratulate all the contestants, specially 2nd, 3rd, and even KimberlyKC23, your entry was great too!!! In fact it was our favorite. We'd like to say that Joel's entry was really the inspiration for our setup. When we first moved here 3 years ago we really wanted something as elegant as their setup, and we love your video. Rene's setup was our technical challenge, we really wanted the components to be somewhere else, we didn't know where but we too contemplated the closet, it's a great idea, and your results are obvious. Now we're thinking about doing the reverse, adding a TV in closet that's linked to the componets in the media wall.

After following the smallest coolest apartment contest last year we decided to enter this year. But when we heard of the smallest coolest tech setup, we were torn, because for us, it was a better fit and we love A/V!!! We could not pass it up. If this was really a contest for the smallest coolest tech setup, we wanted to be a part of that. After all, we've been through 9 months of hell, living in this small apartment while doing our improvements. Wet saw in the kitchen, saw dust in my cereal, female neighbors being sexually harassed by the tile guys, no bathroom door, covering the bed in plastic everyday, dressing out of a cardboard box closet, and much more... We've been through it all and at the horizon, at last, the smallest coolest tech setup; PERFECT!

Wende did a really cool analysis regarding Professional designed entries, please check it out:

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/small-cool-2007-news/small-cool-2007-were-youre-getting-analyzed-023040

Thank you Anne in Chicago!!!

-Kelly & Gregory

P.S. we did the video for home tech, being technically oriented how we could resist.

The sour grapes are leaving a bad sad taste in my mouth.....

I've gotten some great ideas for tech storage from this contest - thanks to all the participants.

wow! reallly? poor you having to deal with dust! i bet it was also painful to have a contractor do all of the work.

STOP PIMPING YOUR FIRM!

also, congrats to the SMALLEST UNCOOLEST judges for not researching the rules of the contest and cowering under...."well, the masters in NYC said it was ok to enter more than one". own it please:

again congrats to the judges:

1st place - Ryan
2nd place - Mark
3rd place - Kate
4th place - Kelly

honrable mention to Janel!

"I like the way the TV hangs on the wall like a piece of art"

i like cookies and milk!

thanks for this indepth critique Ryan! what a trite statement. having read this quote it is pretty obvious we are not dealing with the most critical lens available, rather teeny bop ipod pop culture.

congrats to all of the winners and those losers who actually should have one.

Kimberley really needs to STFUGBTW, and take ballz with her.

By Kim's own estimation if this contest was "hang a TV and hide your components" then she only fulfilled half of that with her entry.

The winner here was definitely the strongest contender, but I personally think most of the slate was weak.

The real lesson here is that because so much of technology is standardized any contest like this is going to end up with a lot of entries that are fundamentally the same. At the end of the day most of what we have here is "here's my mac on a desk. It's white!" or "here's a plasma on a wall. Shiny!"

It would probably be more interesting to to have the contest revolve around unique applications of technology broken out by price point.

What if next year the contest was three tiers: $100, $1000, $5000

Whoever came up with the most innovative and interesting use of technologies at at a given price point would win the tier. I'd love to see lighting automation systems, whole house audio, transformable theater spaces, remote hamster feeding mechanisms, rube-goldberg beer delivery kinetic sculptures, solar powered vibrators, etc.

at the end of the day, AT is a web community -- we're completely entitled to our postings, within reason. i think we're within reason.
maxie: exactly - we didn't win the contest because we didn't hide our components -- which was apparently another unwritten rule.
it's true - there probably isn't a ton that you can do with home tech that hasn't been seen before - but there were other, more distinguishable entries than what the judges ultimately chose. the contest should have been about more than shoving a big tv on the wall and hiding the ugly stuff away somewhere. and then if it was truly about having the biggest and best home technology - where is randall as a winner?? he kicked all of our a**es with his set-up!
in the end, we lost. that's fine, i know it's not the end of the world.

p.s. matt and i have basically brushed our teeth with drywall dust over the past year, being that we've remodelled every bit of our loft -- ourselves. we've touched every square inch of our home. he's an architect and i'm a graphic designer and we've never once tried to advertise our professional lives here ... if we want to get into that.

Randall would have won, but his apartment was too big. I would have entered my theater, but my apartment is over the size limit as well.

I'm still pretty disappointed about the whole professional v. non as far as smallest, coolest entrants go.

I understand that different people have different resources at their disposal and the designed entries are definitely beautiful, but there are two big issues that need to be addressed:
1. This contest essentially acts as free advertising
2. The winner gets a prize.

Number one definitely varies from entry to entry. With the tech winner though, they've made it clear which firm they're from and I'm pretty surprised AT is ok with that.

Number two for me, is an issue of ethics. If you design professionally is it unethical to accept a prize when competing against non professionals? I would say yes.

Possible Solutions?
1. I wouldn't encourage the banning of professional entries altogether, as they're amazing, and I love looking at them. I would however, reconsider how much people "advertise". Like I mentioned above, at this point, everyone knows Kelly and Gregory are posting on behalf (or as part) of an architecture firm.
2. Do away with prizes for the smallest, coolest contest. Instead why don't you take that prize money/reward and have a raffle: Whoever wins gets a mini reno with the help of the sponsor and Maxwell. Seriously, how awesome of a post would that be?! Everyone would love it!

I don't know... these are just some thoughts and I want to stress that I'm not writing this because I "didn't win" (I knew I was never going to win since I'm still learning). My hope is that we'll see more discussion on this in the future.

In response to the following quote from maxine:

"Kimberley really needs to STFUGBTW, and take ballz with her."

FNOMJUOKLOIYNMM MMN IULOTEEFJ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Does someone need their diaper changed? Mr. Poopie Pants?

Also,I wonder how the judges know what any of the square footage of any of the entries were? Nobody asked, it was just assumed.

Did the sponser, Apple, know about the ever-changing rules and the uneven playing field? Hmmmmm.

KimberlyKC23-

In response to your statement, "while you're at it, you may want to reconsider the name of the contest: how about 'mount your tv on the wall and hide your crap somewhere'"?

The way I see it, your statement implies that there are four options for a home theater setup.

1. Mount your TV to the wall and hide your crap.
2. Mount your TV to the wall and show your crap.
3. Put your TV on a stand and hide your crap.
4. Put your TV on a stand and show your crap.

You chose option #2, and you want a reward for that? To me, innovative home tech design is about hiding the ugly workings of the system and integrating it seemlessly into an interior. Isn't that what everyone is really trying to do? The 4 winners of this contest did the best job with the integration, and they should be praised for it. Achieving a minimal home tech aesthetic, while having all the components and features is a lot harder than it looks.

mviamontes...you must be friends with atleast one of the winners.

hiding the components is an easier way of dealing with them than designing a system that makes them attractive. since we are dealing with a "small and cool" space, we didn't have an extra closet to hide our stuff away in and we didn't want to add another piece of bulky furniture simply for the purpose of camouflage.
our entry was one of the most creative and one of the best uses of minimal space. i stand by that.

and my new name for the contest was obviously a sarcastic comment on the judges' picks. there are other attractive ways of dealing with home media besides buying the largest tv, mounting it on a wall, and hiding the crap.
i wish the judges had also recognized other, more interesting solutions -- including the computer system that was a semi-finalist.