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CANstruction Toronto, now in its 22nd year, is an annual design competition that creates structures out of canned food, to help shine a light on the severity of food insecurity in the city. This year, 21 firms participated, including Diamond Schmitt, DIALOG, and Gensler.
Each entry was judged by a jury of industry experts during the awards ceremony held on May 14. Some of this year’s designs included an illuminated Care Bear structure that was the winner of the Structural Ingenuity Award, and a Terminator skull, which won the Honourable Mention Award.
This year also marked the introduction of a new award category: Most Cans Used. The winning entry used 9,972 cans to create a glass bottle featuring an SOS message.
The total weight of food collected this year was 37,915 kg (83,590 lbs), which is 25 per cent more than last year’s collection.
To date, CANstruction Toronto has donated more than 453,592 kg (1 million lbs) of food to Daily Bread Food Bank. This year, 71,000 cans were used across all 21 designs.
CANstruction Toronto’s winners
Best Meal Award—Core Architects Inc.
Can-necting the Hungry City, which used 5,208 cans, represents the journey the community is taking to arrive at a place where all have reliable access to food.
Honourable Mention Award—Gensler Architecture & Design Canada Inc.
Cantunator used a total of 4,630 items. Like the Terminator reimagined, this project aimed to hold the promise to lead humanity into an age of prosperity and abundance. This sculpture also aims to be a symbol of the positive potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to address global challenges, including hunger and food security.
Structural Ingenuity Award—Diamond Schmitt Architects
Using 5,332 items, Sharing Can Bear Care uses the popular Care Bear brand, and represents the image of Care Bears as their food sculpture. The team borrowed the imagery of the Care bears and the associated values and lessons taught to children in the show: care, love, bravery, friendliness, and compassion.
Best Use of Labels Award—DIALOG
Using 3,215 cans, Global Fever aims to raise awareness of global warming by reimagining the blue planet turning red and forming the red bulb of a thermometer.
Best Original Design Award—LEA Consulting and CS&P Architects
This project, which used 4,896 cans, is called Just Keep Swimming, which serves as a commentary on food security and sustainability. The can-structed fish aims to showcase how a single can of food is bigger than one may initially think. Using tuna also aims to reflects on the depletion of the ocean’s resources.
Most Cans Award—Turner Fleischer Architects Inc.
SOS: Hunger Emergency used 9,972 cans and is a bottle adrift in the sea of food insecurity crashing onto the shore and shattering, aiming to represent a call for help from 1 in 10 Torontonians who rely on food banks.
