REES Awarded "Best Team Sign" at 35th Annual AIA Houston Sandcastle Competition

Let’s Play Crabble Highlight Reel | Features photos, media mentions and a time lapse of REES and Jordan & Skala Engineers building the sculpture.

For the second year, REES took home an AIA Houston Sandcastle Competition award after winning “Best Team Sign” during the 35th annual event in Galveston, Texas. More than 45 AIA member firms had five hours to construct their sculptures using only 35 cubic yards of sand within a zoned plot.

Using the popular board game Scrabble as inspiration, REES, along with members from Jordan & Skala Engineers, competed in the category of “Kid-tastic Board Games”. As a playful ode to the beach, “Let’s Play Crabble” became the team name.

The “Let’s Play Crabble!” sand sculpture featured a giant blue crab resting on a Scrabble board with played tiles spelling “REES” and “SAND”. As required by the competition rules, each competing team designed a sign indicating their name and competition category. Carved out of foam and covered with sand, our sign was strategically placed and designed to appear as the opponent playing the giant blue crab. The sign featured a smaller crab balancing a Scrabble rack and letter tiles in his claws. The sign’s design and structure served to complete narrative of two crabs playing “Crabble”.

REES’ “Let’s Play Crabble!” blue crab sand sculpture was featured on a number of news and social media outlets including ABC13 Houston, Houston Chronicle and i45NOW.

We can’t wait to be back on East Beach competing again in 2023!