Like a vision from a childhood dream, massive sculptures made entirely from non-perishable food will rise from the imagination of gifted architects this March at Providence Place on the Skybridge Concourse. This ambitious project, known as Canstruction®, makes an appearance every two years, thanks to the inspiration and sweat equity of dozens of professional architects, builders and volunteers. This year’s free exhibit will be open to the public Saturday, March 8 through Friday, March 21 during regular mall hours. They will be assembled on the morning of March 8 — dubbed Build Day — and the public is invited to watch it happen.
When the exhibit closes, the building materials — thousands of pounds of healthy food — will be picked up by the Rhode Island Community Food Bank to help feed the 68,000 people served every month through its network of food pantries.
The Canstruction® RI sculptures will be evaluated by a panel of independent jurors. Awards will be presented for Best Meal, Best Use of Labels, Structural Ingenuity, Jurors’ Favorite, and Honorable Mention.Viewers may vote for the local “People’s Choice” award.
The seven teams competing include:
- Construction Leadership Council of the R.I. Chapter of Associated General Contractors, Providence
- Dimeo Construction Co. and Vision 3 Architects, both based in Providence
- Durkee, Brown, Viveiros & Werenfels Architects, Providence, GTECH Corporation, Providence, Herrick & White, Cumberland, and Odeh Engineers, Providence
- Gilbane Building Co., Providence, and Jo Ann Bentley Architect, Inc., Fall River
- LLB Architects, Pawtucket, Shawmut Design and Construction, Providence, and Fuzion Design, Pawtucket
- Northeast Collaborative Architects, Newport and Providence, Veri-Waterman Associates, Providence, Building Engineering Resources LLC, North Easton , Mass., and Kasabian Construction Inc., Providence
- Saccoccio & Associates, DiPrete Engineering and E. Turgeon Construction Corp., all based in Cranston
The Canstruction® Rhode Island exhibit is organized by the American Institute of Architects-Rhode Island chapter, and supported by many other volunteers and donors as a joint public service activity. Among the major event sponsors is the R.I. Associated General Contractors, some of whose commercial contractor members and the organization’s Construction Leadership Council help form teams that raise additional money to buy the cans of food and build the sculptures that the architects on each team design. Canstruction® is a national food charity of the design and construction industry, sponsored by the Society for Design Administration.
The Rhode Island Community Food Bank is a non-profit organization located in Providence, RI. The Food Bank solicits, stores and distributes food products donated by supermarkets, wholesalers, food processors, local farmers and community food drives. The food is then distributed to the Food Bank’s statewide network of 178 member agency at 223 sites. In the past year, the Food Bank distributed 9.9 million pounds of food. For more information about the Food Bank, please visit www.rifoodbank.org.
