Architects Collect Canned Goods by Design
December 17, 1998 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Architects and engineers in 18 cities across the country collected 300,000 pounds of canned goods for food pantries last year through an unusual design competition organized by a charity called Canstruction.
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Using cans of food, either donated by food companies or purchased by the participants, the designers produced models of just about anything imaginable, from an Olympic torch to the sinking Titanic and from a New York taxicab to the “Million Can March.”
The competition, which is being held in 30 cities this year, is designed not only to collect food but also to call attention to the problem of hunger. Most of the exhibits have hunger-related themes, such as a boxing ring whose slogan was “beet hunger.” The sculpture was made from cans of beets and black-eyed peas.
In cities that have no major architectural-design firms, the organization asks a local architect to help a class of children create a design.
The works of art remain on display for three days to a month and a half, depending on the city. Then they are dismantled and the canned goods distributed to food banks.
Winners of local competitions are entered into a national contest, which is always held at year’s end to capitalize on the press’s interest in doing charity features at holiday time, says Cheri Melillo, the group’s founder and an administrator at a New York City architectural firm.
This year’s main contest took place in November at the United Nations, where some 80,000 pounds of food were collected.
A sculpture called “Stone Soup” won the prize for best work in last year’s national competition. It was produced by New York architects HLW International and is filled with bags of legumes.
For more information, contact Cheri Melillo, Canstruction, c/o Butler Rogers Baskett, 381 Park Avenue South, New York 10016; (212) 686-9677; fax (212) 213-2170; e-mail: cmelillo@brb.com; World-Wide Web: http://www.sdadmin.org/canstruct.html.
