CAN-Struction Competition Challenges Architects To Build Models From Canned Food Donations

Local architects and designers substituted their convention materials of brick and mortar for canned goods and bottled waterson Thursday at the Livingston Mall to help raise awareness of those going hungry this holiday season. 
For the 15th year in a row, the American Institute of Architects of New Jersey put on its annual designing competition known as CAN-Struction. The nationally sponsored event challenges volunteers to build a creative design out of donated foodstuffs. 

Near the end of the day on Thursday, Lauren Scuorzo was still working on a life-sized model of three skee ball machines with nearly a dozen architects from Gensler, a design firm out of Morristown, on the first floor of the mall.

The skee ball design was made from hundreds of cans of tomato sauce, beans, corn, sardines and more that the Gensler team had raised leading up to the event.

Scuorzo, who has participated in the event for the past five years, said it was always a worthwhile and fun day.

“It’s a way to give back to the community and it’s a lot of fun,” said Scuorzo, "and it involves our skills as architects and designers.”

Ron Weston, chairman of CANstruction this year, said this year’s theme was inspired by Super Storm Sandy, and was titled “The Shore CAN Rebuilt.”

Seven teams competed in the friendly event on Thursday. And the designs – which included a lighthouse, Ferris wheel and raised home — used nearly 32,000 cans of food, bags of rice and bottle water. 

The food raised for the event, including nearly $7,000 in donations, will be donated to the Community Foodbank of New Jersey, a charity that distributes food to dozens of soup kitchens and nonprofits throughout the state. 

Weston said the designs were once again amazing this year, and the event always brings help to those in need. 

“It’s a great cause,” said Weston. “It combines creativity, competition and passion that designers and architects have.” 

Elsewhere in the mall, Frank Messineo was working on a 10-foot tall model of a Ferris wheel with his team comprised of designers from Solutions Architecture, out of Newark. 

The Ferris wheel was split into two, said Messineo: one side was the view of the attraction by day, and the other side was the view by night. 

In another part, Andrew DeDiasse, of Fanwood, and Emily Earron, of Maplewood, said they were working with their families two to erect a 9-foot tall model of a raised home on stilts. 

Earron said the team designed the model on the computer, which used about 1,660 items worth of food.

“We designed it graphically on the computer and found out how many cans were needed and what the shape was going to be,” said Earron, who attends South Orange-Maple’s Columbia High School.

The model was based on a house from the board game Monopoly, and used cans of baked beans for stilts, green beans for the home, granola bars for the roof, with bags of rice representing sand and bottles of water for the ocean placed beneath it all. 

"We've been doing this since we were little," Earron, "and … it's a really fun activity to do together and it does a lot of good."