Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Gehry and Antoni Gaudi may have memorialized themselves with Falling Water, The Dancing House and Casa Batlló respectively. However, they have nothing on this year’s Canstruction competitors. Sure those guys put together works of art with brick and mortar, but they never made a vending machine out of cans of tomatoes. Without such a canstruction achievement, their legacies may forever fall under scrutiny.
That is not the case with Washington design and architectural firms LEO A DALY, Stantec, and HOK, among others. They will all cement their places in the canstruction annals as they take to the National Building Museum September 1st to compete in this year’s Canstruction DC.
Sponsored by the Washington Architectural Foundation and the Society for Design Administration, Canstruction is an annual design competition in which cans of food are used as building blocks, then donated to the Capital Area Food Bank. Canstruction DC uses one can of food as a catalyst for change; one can to represent the building blocks of massive sculptures; one can to prove that every act of kindness makes a difference.
Teams compete for the much vaunted Peoples Choice Award, which is determined by votes, er donations, to their team pages. Note, not all teams participating are currently listed. Many teams need to still set up their pages, and some are just getting started. However, a few are already working hard to promote their projects.
In what appears to be design plans or very elaborate subterfuge, Barnes Vanze and ASD Inc. have posted Cad drawings to their team pages. It is very exciting to see the work in progress.
Over the next few weeks, check the leaderboard page to see team standings. There, you will also have access to specific team pages to see photos and videos of past and present projects. The food bank will also post Canstruction updates to its blog, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter. Make sure to follow us.
We wish good luck to all the participants. And may the team with the best CAN-do attitude win!