Canstruction Asheville

What happens when creative architects and school kids run a food drive? Canstruction!

On our way from SC to KY, we stopped at Pack Place in Asheville, NC, where the Canstruction competition was just getting started.

Thad Rhoden of Architectural Design Studio and this year’s Chairman explained the whole process to us, and we watched as seven teams of enthusiastic kids built fantastic creations from cans.

Canstruction is a national nonprofit organization sponsored by the American Institute of Architects (AIA).  Each year, it holds competitions in which teams construct huge sculptures entirely out of cans. At the end of the event, all the cans are donated to local food banks to help feed hungry people in the community.

This entry was called "May Hunger Rest in Peas"

Canstruction Asheville, sponsored by the Asheville chapter of AIA, is different than many Canstruction events because the contestant are all teams of middle and high school students. Each team comes up with its own idea and implements it with the assistance of a teacher and 1 or more architects.

Canstruction projects take the students through the full building cycle:

• Design: Entries must fit within an 8-foot cube, must be made of cans, must not deface the can in any way because it will be distributed to hungry families after the event.
• Budget: This year, each team could order $1400 worth of cans as the materials for their project. Funds were raised by Canstruction from local corporate donors.
• Schedule: Each team met a minimum of 6 times to plan their project and meet the Canstruction milestones. 
• Construction: Cans were delivered to Pack Place and all construction took place on October 30 before 5pm.

The team for this caramel apple urged people to “spread a
little sweetness by donating food to Manna Food Bank.”

Entries will be judged during the week and the winners announced next Saturday, November 6. Prizes will be awarded for:

• Best meal (most balanced diet)
• Structural ingenuity
• Best use of labels
• Juror’s favorite



This team said, "The wheels of the tractor are changing
direction, and in a similar way, we hope to turn the corner
on hunger in Buncombe County while HARVESTING HOPE
for all."

• People’s choice (During the week, members of the public come and view the entries. They can vote for their favorite by leaving a can in the big bin next to it.)

This entry proclaimed:  "Hunger has been
around for too long. ... It is time the hour
glass runs out."

These kids clearly learned a lot! We don’t know what the winning entries will be, but we do know that the “final” winners will be the hungry of western North Carolina. That’s because after next Saturday, all of the approximately 14,000 cans used in this Canstruction event, plus all the cans donated by folks to vote on each entry, will go to the local Manna FoodBank.