REES, Thiel Design Group and Hoar Construction Take Battleship to the Beach at the Galveston Sandcastle Festival
REES joined Thiel Design Group and Hoar Construction on Galveston’s East Beach last weekend for the annual AIA Houston Sandcastle Competition. Together, the three firms brought Battleship: The Sunken Sailor’s Game to life in sand.
Behind This Year’s Design
The REES team started with a playful twist on the classic game of Battleship. In our story, sea creatures sink a sailor’s ship. A crab and an octopus discover the game among the wreckage and decide to play it for themselves. The theme put a playful spin on our team’s chosen competition category: Creature of the Sea.
Before anyone touched the sand, we explored the concept through several rounds of diagrams and models. Early studies helped establish the overall composition, while 3D models gave the team a better sense of how the characters, ship and game board would work together.
The plan became more detailed as competition day approached. The team created stencils and sculpting guides for the finer details. Phasing diagrams mapped out how the sculpture would be built within the competition window.
“We knew what the final result needed to look like, but we had to work backward from the formwork and think through each step that would get us there,” Co-captain Ian Thomas said. “It required a reverse-engineering mindset.”
The process also helped the team understand what could realistically be accomplished with the available 25 cubic yards of sand within the five-hour build time. Calculating the size of the forms allowed team members to refine the scale.
REES, Thiel and Hoar are working together on a local project, so Sandcastle offered a fun extension of that partnership. Weekly planning meetings felt much like a real project, with each firm bringing its own experience to the table.
Competition Day
The team arrived before sunrise to set the forms, prepare the site and get everything ready before the clock started.
Once the competition began, the plans and models became a full-scale sand sculpture. Team members packed and shaped the main forms while others carved characters and details. As the hours passed, the sunken ship, Battleship board and sea creatures began to emerge.
The final stretch brought everyone together. People stepped outside their original assignments to move sand, carve details and finish as much of the sculpture as possible before time ran out. “Beyond the sand build itself, I was impressed by how adaptable our team was,” Co-captain Peyton Thomas said. “When we reached those final elements, everyone jumped in.” That teamwork carried the group through the final minutes and helped bring the original design to life at the scale the team had envisioned.
A special thank you to Thiel Design Group and Hoar Construction for a great day at the beach. We appreciate every team member who spent the weekend helping us bring this sunken game of Battleship to life.