Canstruction Exhibit Shows Power of Design Industry

Yesterday I took my two-year-old daughter Chloe to see the Canstruction exhibit at the World Financial Center's Winter Garden and Courtyard Gallery in New York City. A foundation of the Society for Design Administration (SDA), Canstruction is a design/build competition held in 129 participating cities across the United States, Canada and Australia. Teams of architects and engineers, plus students mentored by these professionals, compete to design and build giant structures made entirely from full cans of food. Design- and construction-industry professional associations that have partnered with the SDA in organizing local competitions include the American Institute of Architects, the Society for Marketing Professional Services and the International Interior Design Association.

Teams are given just 12 hours to turn their design ideas into gravity-defying sculptures made from thousands of cans of food. The results are displayed to the public as sculpture exhibits in each city where a competition is held, and they are judged in a variety of categories. At the close of the exhibitions all of the canned food used in the structures—plus canned food donations from the public who viewed the exhibits—is donated to local food banks for distribution to emergency feeding programs that include pantries, soup kitchens, and elderly and day care centers. 

At the New York exhibit, my daughter and I, plus my friend Kara and her baby Zachary, marveled at each of the 40  "towers" (as Chloe called them) built of cans. They resembled everything from the humorous "Sarah Palin's Bridge to Nowhere" to a cute-but-giant "Mr. Potato Head" to the conceptual "Focus on Hunger" that featured a camera pointed at an empty bowl and spoon. It was truly extraordinary how the teams were able to support these amazing structures with nothing more than tape and cardboard. Chloe called them "awesome," "beautiful," and "so cool." I agree.

Since Canstruction's inception, 10 million pounds of food have been donated to aid in the fight against hunger. Initiated by the Denver, Seattle and New York Chapters of the SDA in 1992-1993, Canstruction now has more than 100 individual competitions scheduled to take place during the 2007-2008 cycle. The exhibits change lives by lifting the spirits of those in need, raising public awareness and filling the shelves of local food banks.

The Canstruction competition shows how great an impact the design and construction community can have on important issues affecting our world. It hasn't been easy working to make green building the norm rather than the exception, but the design industry has made tremendous strides already. If we mobilize together to make building more and more eco-friendly, even more significant change is possible.

—Ellen Sturm Niz
Web Content Manager
K+BB