Canstruction

The 19th Annual New York City Canstruction® Competiton and Exhibition is over but be sure to check out the slideshow in the upper right-hand corner with images of all the award winners. The complete list of winners and jurors can be found below. All structure photos by Canstruction/Kevin Wick. Photo of this year’s jurors by Sunny Norton

The New York City Canstruction® Competition has completed its 19th year thanks to the hundreds of volunteers, contributors and participants who dedicate their time and talent. The exhibition took place in the Winter Garden of the World Financial Center, 220 Vesey Street and the West Side Highway.  This year the structures provided enough food to feed nearly 60,000 hungry New Yorkers and with an additional 20,000 fed through contributions from the public.

The New York City competition is Co-Presented by Canstruction New York, Inc., the Society for Design Administration New York Chapter, the AIA New York Chapter and arts>World Financial Center.   Below is a link (box with the Canstruction Banner image) that leads to a tour of images of all this past year’s entries (click on the image in the box).

2011 Canstruction

This year’s winners are:

Juror’s Favorite: Loaded Dice by Gensler / WSP Flack + Kurtz

Structural Ingenuity: Suspending Hunger by Skanska USA

Best Meal: Root Against Hunger by Dattner Architects

Best Use of Labels: QR-CAN: Link to Fight Hunger by Gruzen Samton • IBI Group

Honorable Mention: NepTUNA the HippoCANpus Against Hunger by Gilsanz Murray Steficek

Honorable Mention: Shedding Light on Hunger by Leslie E. Robertson Associates (LERA)

TheCheri Award was given to Eleanor Roosevelt High School / Sandra Forman Design for their entry Strike Out Hunger. This was the second annual awarding of this prize named for Canstruction Founder, Cheri C. Melillo. Each year the criteria for this award changes and is awarded by the organizing committe or its agents. Cheri’s son, Brion van Over, and husband, Bruce Melillo picked the winner based on Cheri’s wish, especially in the last few year’s of her life, to get students in schools around the world engaged in the design process while heightening their awareness of the issue of hunger throughout the world.

Congratulations to all of our winners and thank you to everyone who made the 19th Annual New York City Canstruction Design/Build Competition possible.

This year’s jury was comprised of:

• Michael Arad, AIA, LEED AP of Handel Architects, LLP whose design for the World Trade Center Site Memorial recently opened to the public
• Annie Block, an articles editor at Interior Design
• Jeff Andrews, celebrated California-based interior designer
• Mary-Jean Eastman, FAIA, MRAIC, IIDA, a founding partner of Perkins Eastman Architects
• Richard Hayden, FAIA RIBA, Managing Principal at Swanke Hayden Connell Architects
• Ellie Krieger, New York Times bestselling author, James Beard Foundation award winner and host of The Food Network’s Healthy Appetite
• Wade Burch, C.E.C., Executive Chef at Neely’s Barbeque Parlor and first-place winner on the Food Network series Chopped
• and Chip Wade, Master Carpenter on HGTVs Curb Appeal: The Block and HGTVs Designed to Sell.

Canstruction® is an international charity competition where architects, engineers, contractors and students they mentor, compete to design and build giant structures made entirely from full cans of food. At the close of the competition all of the food from the New York City competition will be donated to City Harvest.

New York City is joined by over 100 cities across North America and other countries such as Australia and New Zealand who will hold Canstruction® Competitions in the coming year. Highlighting the creativity and compassion of top architectural and engineering firms, these astounding structures are helping to change the world – by lifting the spirits of those in need, by raising public awareness, and most importantly, by collecting millions of pounds of food for local food banks.

Last year the winners (slideshow shows the 2010 winners) of the 18th Annual Canstruction New York Competition 2010 were:

Juror’s Favorite: The BabushCAN by THORNTON TOMASETTI

Best Structural Ingenuity: FEASTer Island by LERA

Best Meal: Paint the Town “Fed” by DATTNER ARCHITECTS

Best Use of Labels: I Think I ‘Can’ by MTA NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT

Honorable Mention: Cups Can Only Spill by GILSANZ MURRAY STEFICEK

Honorable Mention: Tomato Tornado by SKIDMORE OWINGS AND MERRILL

Last  year we, also, gave out a new award in honor of Cheri Melillo, the founder of Canstruction. Aptly named the Cheri Award, this award will be given for a different set of criteria each year determined and awarded by the organizing committee of Canstruction New York.

The 2010 winner was ShenaniCANs Care! by Shen Milsom & Wilke and the criteria was the structure whose can contents will feed the most people.

The 2010 jury was comprised of:

• Rocco Di Spirito, Celebrity Chef and Cookbook Author
• Laura Heim, AIA, President AIA Queens and Principal of Heim Architect
• Cynthia Kracauer, AIA, Managing Director of AIA New York
• Lisa LaPorta, designer, of the HGTV show Designed to Sell
• Bruce Melillo, husband of Canstruction founder, the late Cheri Melillo
• Gail Simmons, host of Bravo’s show Top Chef: Just Desserts

Click on the below image to take a tour of all 2010 entries. All Photos by Kevin Wick.

2010 Canstruction NY tour

Thank you to all of the participating teams in this year’s Canstruction New York for a wonderful exhibition and for helping to collect close to  100,000 cans for City Harvest.

Contact us at email@CanstructionNY.org if you have any questions or comments.