Architects show their sweet tooth for contest
Local firms create complex structures in annual battle of gingerbread houses
Kyle Byrnes fretted as the precarious mountain of gingerbread grew skyward.
By mid-morning Saturday, it threatened to scrape the top of the tent his team had set up at the Gingerbread Build Off in downtown Houston. Each new layer raised the stakes for the group, which hoped the icing-slicked sheets could stand as tall as 5 feet.
“We’re worried about tipping,” said Byrnes, a designer with Morris Architects. “Will there be buckling? I don’t know.”
His group joined 17 others at Hermann Square for the annual event, hosted by the Architecture Center of Houston. The intense competition challenged many of the city’s architectural firms to build elaborate structures with no-
toriously fickle materials.
The teams cut sheets of fondant and molded towers of Rice Krispy treat mix, hoping they’d hold up in the morning chill. They had five hours to transform their grocery-store goods into miniature buildings and landscapes worthy of one of the event’s many awards.
“When it comes to the gingerbread, it’s really about the bragging rights,” said Mat Wolff, associate director of the American Institute of Architects Houston.
Now in its eighth year, the event has grown to attract as many as 4,000 spectators eager to watch a holiday hobby executed with professional skill. Once, a team made decorations out of sugar blown like glass, Wolff said, while another cast chocolate on the spot.
“It was kind of mind-blowing,” he said.
This year, three little pigs made of bright pink fondant waited to be placed by their respective houses, then under construction by architects with Harrison Kornberg. The firm had produced a precise rendering of the scene, but the chal- lenge was building the parts to scale in the frenzy of the moment, said Samantha Peters, an architectural intern with the firm.
“You just have to go with it,” she said.
In another tent, a group of architects sponsored by Thomas Printworks prepared a sprawl- ing farm scene. Corey Lynch, marketing manager for the PhiloWilke Partnership, made 10 double batches of Rice Krispy treats to form the base.
“That’s a lot of stirring, let me tell you,” she said as one of her teammates readied bits of kale to mimic an apple orchard.
On a bench nearby, Jason Benitez’s cold fingers worked an X-Acto knife into a thick slab of gingerbread that would eventually support a castle inspired by “Game of Thrones.” A junior at Alief Hastings High School, he joined a group of classmates competing for the first time.
“My hands are shaking, but we’re going to make it work somehow,” he said.
Avi Moshenberg’s 2-year-old son, an avid Legos fan, watched the builders work with a wideeyed smile. It was his family’s first time at the event.
“He’s mesmerized,” Moshenberg said.
Meanwhile, the gingerbread mountain grew ever taller as the team from Morris Architects shaped it into a snow-covered landscape. The group hoped to win the award for tallest standing structure.
“We’re hoping we’ll have to move the tent,” Byrnes said.