A Miami-based Coastal Construction is being honored for completing the first project in America with RENCO USA, which launches a whole new way to build with real-life LEGO bricks.
At the Build Florida Awards, hosted by the South Florida AGC, Coastal Construction received the “Innovation in Construction” award for building Lakewood Village in Palm Beach County with the revolutionary RENCO building system. The annual ceremony honors AGC members who build the state's most impressive construction projects.
“We are honored to be recognized for bringing innovation to the age-old construction industry, which has relied on concrete, wood, and steel for a century. Now, we have an entirely new material with RENCO,” says Thomas P. Murphy, Jr. Chairman and CEO Coastal Construction Group and RENCO Co-Founder. “RENCO is stronger than concrete and more sustainable. We’ve created user-friendly, connectable bricks and color-coded plans, so communities can construct affordable buildings, more quickly.”
After launching the company in 2023, RENCO has received two global awards. In November, the company won Best Construction Product Design of 2023 at the BLT Built Design Awards in Lucerne, Switzerland and this month, RENCO took first place for building innovations at the 2024 JEC Composites Innovation Awards in Paris, France.
Following more than 12 years of research and development, RENCO USA successfully completed Lakewood Village, its inaugural apartment complex, in Palm Springs, Florida, last November, having passed more than 400 safety tests for U.S. building approval.
RENCO's innovative building system, utilizing interlocking molded blocks similar to LEGO bricks, surpasses concrete in strength, reduces costs significantly, and allows for rapid construction. Made with recycled glass fibers, resin, and stone, this renewable composite material is certified to withstand Category 5 hurricanes.
This innovation addresses the affordable housing crisis by using renewable materials, eliminating construction waste, and reducing labor costs—no specialized workers or heavy machinery are required to build with the blocks, which are stronger but 75-percent lighter than concrete. In Palm Springs, 11 unskilled workers assembled each three-story building in about eight weeks, following color-coded plans.