Canstruction, an annual event put on by the Society for Design Administration (SDA) and held in different cities around the world, landed in New York recently, where 30 teams from local architecture firms built some astounding sculptures. The result? City Harvest received a donation of a whopping 100,693 cans of food, while the public got to marvel at awesome creations—some of which are shown below.
Feed the Bank
This little piggy, built by Arianna Braun Architects, PLLC, took 3,024 cans of salmon and 24 cans of tuna to go wee-wee-wee all the way to winning Jurors' Favorite. Team Captain Vera Marie Galvez says, "We went through a series of simple symbols and figures and came up with a piggy bank because it's a sign of the time—it's a response to the current recession and it shows that each small contribution helps toward a larger goal. This was truly a team effort as many of our clients and vendors made donations from $5 to $50, and Chicken of the Sea even provided us the cans at cost."
The (Not So) Very Hungry Caterpillar
Fans of the Eric Carle classic will no doubt recognize this big guy, built by Polshek Partnership Architects out of 9,168 cans of tuna. The sculpture took home an honorable mention. "We started with an earthworm and a ladybug on the leaf, and we realized it looked just like the children's book," says team captain Chiara Bajardi. "Then we spent hours looking at different cans for color and stackability, sourcing from three different places."
A nice, steaming bowl of oatmeal out of a can? That's 3,900 cans of vegetables, sauce and beans, to be exact. This sculpture, built by HLW International LLP/Turner Construction, nabbed the award for Best Meal. "We really wanted to do something about comfort, and oatmeal is the best comfort food," says team captain Vicki Abbinanti.
We Get By with a Little Help from Our Friends
Ted Moudis Associates won Best Use of Labels with their four sculptures, one for each of the Beatles, which used a total 5,000 cans of 4 different types of tuna. "There are a lot of Beatles fans at the company, so it was a natural fit," says team captain Brittany McGann.
A Fungus to Feed Us
These gravity-defying mushrooms built by Platt Byard Dovell White Architects won Best Structural Ingenuity, for good reason. It took 2,100 cans of sardines and mushrooms to build it. Team captain Alberto Quinones says, "We chose this because it was challenging. We've been competing for seven years, and one of my colleagues, Joe Berlinghieri, had the idea five years ago. After a few years of trying progressively more difficult options, we thought we were ready for it. The mushrooms were important for the theme, of course, but also because they're taller and thinner. The flat and long sardine cans were useful for the caps."
Desimone Consulting Engineers used 2,580 cans of tuna, sardines, evaporated milk, baked beans and cream corn to make this yummy-looking pumpkin pie. "We like to choose a design that can be constructed well with clean lines and is easily recognizable to people of all ages," says team captain Victoria Calcagni. "Once our design was decided on, we had to pick out cans with appropriate-colored labels to build the structure. One of the cans we originally picked was a pumpkin purée can for the filling, to further reinforce the pumpCAN theme of the design. Apparently, there is a pumpkin shortage this year and those cans were not in stock, so we chose the Bush's Baked Beans can as the new filling. I think the City Harvest will benefit more from the baked beans anyway."
Riding the Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel, Coney Island's most notable landmarks, is a bit harder when they're made out of 6,446 cans of chestnuts, bamboo shoots, black beans, red kidney beans, French-style and cut green beans, sweet peas, tomato sauce and pink salmon. WSP Flack & Kurtz team member Terence Murphy says, "One of the largest challenges was finding a place to order in bulk. Early on, the team picked cans from Walmart, thinking it would keep the cost down and would be easy to obtain, and the label colors worked really well. Then we found out that Walmart will not deliver, or take bulk orders, and that they don't sell food online and do not stock more than approximately 30 cans of an item. This left us with the ridiculous task of visiting all the Walmarts in the general metropolitan area to get the right cans."
Lend a Helping CAN
You may want to give this sculpture a (very careful) high five. It was built by Dattner Architects out of 1,776 cans of carrots, beets and white potatoes, and received an honorable mention.
Peace Out Hunger
This stars-and-stripes peace sign took 2,354 cans of corn, tuna, Vienna sausages and tomato sauce and was built by Conant Architects. "We wanted to do something that's easily recognizable, and we looked at a lot of different options, from Michael Jackson's shoes to a frog, but we picked a peace-out one because it's universal and iconic," says team captain Ayesha Husain.