Happy New Year everybody!

As we've said before, please use the commenting space underneath the briefing for task/contest-related questions and inspiration only. Our support center offers room for general discussions, so I transferred the previous discussion to the public discussion space - check it out here: http://support.jovoto.com/discussions/public-contest-discussion/11-rating-at-marriott-2022-in-public-contests-in-general

A lot of good points have been made, so I ask you to keep on discussing and to give us your input - we are currently working on an enhanced rating tool, but while on it we're always glad about new input!

So long everybody. 3 more days. I'll sure be on my toes ;)

Guys,
I'm on the ratings and coordinating with the jury - please hang in a bit longer, we'll try to get you the winners as soon as possible!
Thx.

Thanks for hanging in there guys - we"ll have the decision here tomorrow noon EST!
So long*

Guys, thanks for your patience.

So here we go: besides our awesome community winners (CONGRATS GUYS!), we have three lucky jury winners that are - drumroll - ...
1) ORGANIC 2022 by andrepradiktha.
2) Type 1 by RK_341
3) Comma Room by tommylai.

Big, big kudos to you guys, to the community winners and to everyone who participated.
Below you'll find a profound feedback from one of the judges, but we also have more feedback on individual ideas which I will paste directly underneath the ideas they commented on.
Again, thanks and hope to see you in the next challenge!

"(...) there were two main trends that caught my eye that were instantiated in one way or another in a large number of the designs.

The first of these trends was an effort to include natural features in the rooms. In many cases, this took the form of simulations of actual vegetation in the room, either as 3d objects (I couldn't tell if the proposal was for real or artificial plants in some cases) or as screen-based simulations of plants, grass, or water. In other cases, this simulation of nature took the form of organic shapes -- either curves in the walls themselves or, in some cases, organic shapes of furnishings within the room. I think that it's a fantastic idea to include any such features whenever possible. One of the most frequently replicated findings in environmental psychology is that exposure to natural environments induces healthy changes in mood, cognition, and even our physiological states and our health. Hotel rooms that promote such exposure seem to me to be very likely to be viewed favourably by visitors.

The second trend consisted of a strong emphasis on incorporation of screen-based technologies using novel materials like OLED. Many rooms had very sophisticated display systems that could do everything from simulate panoramic views of the outdoor world to providing fine-grained wall-sized displays of many different kinds of data. Some rooms included systems for monitoring the movements and also, apparently, the feeling-state of the guest so that what appeared on the displays could change dynamically. Although I think it's a laudable idea to take advantage of new materials and technologies to fill a room with information (and, indeed, as some designers showed, such digital information can substitute for certain types of furnishings), it's important not to overdo it. Some designs left me feeling like an astronaut entering the cockpit of the space shuttle. Who would want to learn such complex systems when we already know that many visitors walk into a hotel room and spend the first 10 minutes learning how to change the temperature of the room? Also, if too much of the skin of the room is made into screens, then the visitor may feel somewhat exposed by the dramatic simulated landscapes that surround them. When we sleep or rest, we want to be surrounded by a cocoon of refuge and not a grand vista of starlit skyscrapers.

-the more tech-heavy designs that made my top 7 were ones that provided a more or less blank-slate inside the room, with minimal furnishings and almost all the actual design of the space left up to the occupant to specify either by choice or by means of measurements of behaviour. As mentioned, I think the risk with such designs is that they overwhelm new visitors with a sharp learning curve. The biggest investment in such designs ought to be in the human interface so as to avoid shuttle-astronaut syndrome." Dr. Colin Ellard.