Charity People

A/E/C Industry Holds Canstruction 2015

CANstruction_2015_026Boston – Canstruction is a charity event and exhibition where teams of architects, designers, engineers, and contractors compete to create colossal sculptures made out of canned goods and other nonperishable food items.

According to local hunger-relief organization and beneficiary Merrimack Valley Food Bank in Lowell, this year in Massachusetts, 700,000 children and adults cannot confidently predict where their next meal is coming from — a number almost 40% higher than it was before the recession and almost 80% higher than at the beginning of the last decade. For nearly two decades, the design community in Boston has united through a fun medium that provides canned food for charities fighting hunger in Massachusetts. In the past 19 years, Canstruction Boston has collected more than 750,000 pounds of food, which has provided roughly 600,000 meals to those in the Greater Boston and surrounding areas.

CANstruction_2015_071 After the sculptures are dismantled, all the canned goods, supplied by the teams and coordinated in part through Whole Foods Market, will be donated to the Merrimack Valley Food Bank in Lowell, Massachusetts.

A record number of 26 teams are took part in this year’s edition.

Participating firms:

BR+A Consulting Engineers; Bruner/Cott Architects and Planners; CBT Architects; Commodore Builders; CUBE 3 Studio; EYP Architecture & Engineering; Gensler; Goddard Technologies; Goody Clancy; Haley & Aldrich; Lavallee Brensinger Architects; Nitsch Engineering; Payette; Prellwitz Chilinski Associates; PES Structural Engineers in a joint venture with Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Phase Zero Design; Prellwitz Chilinski Associates; Sasaki Associates; Silman; Simpson Gumpertz & Heger; SMMA/Symmes Maini & McKee Associates; Stantec; studioTROIKA; Tocci Building Corporation; Tsoi/Kobus & Associates; Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates in a joint venture with Northeastern University Chi Epsilon Chapter; and WSP.