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Can-Do Attitude to Wipe Out Hunger at Merchandise Mart

By Mark Schipper | August 19, 2015 7:55am
 Engineering and architecture firms built elaborate structures out of cans to be donated to the Greater Chicago Food Depository on September 7. 
Canstruction at Merchandise Mart
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THE LOOP — They brainstormed. They bought. They built — all for charity. 

Last Wednesday night the ground floor at Merchandise Mart became a build site as architectural and engineering firms from across the city hustled to erect magnificent structures made entirely out of cans.

It was the Canstruction competition’s ninth annual visit to Chicago to host the event, which pits architecture firms against each other to build elaborate structures out of canned foods. When their exhibition ends September 7, the sculptures will be dismantled, and all of the food will be shipped to the Greater Chicago Food Depository. 

Sculptures created for this year's competition include a Jeep from Jurassic Park being ripped to shreds by the teeth of a tyrannosaurus alongside local favorites like a slab of deep dish pizza and the Stanley Cup.

The builders came armed with renderings, CNC computer-cut boards, detailed build plans and tape, so much tape, as truckloads of cans were loaded into their workspace. Their available materials included cans of green beans, tuna fish and diced tomatoes.

Ramsi Taylor, marketing coordinator at the architecture and design firm Forum Studio, said her personal vision for the build was overruled by her team. The Forum group settled on a Chicago hot dog stand set in front of two angular walls, one featuring the famous North Side Cub’s “C” and the other the Southside’s “Sox" logo.

“I don’t know anything about the Cubs or White Sox, and I don’t eat hot dogs!” Taylor joked. “I wanted to do turntables and a tribute to Frankie Knuckles, the baddest Chicago house deejay. But now that it’s done, I like it. I think it looks really good.”

One of the biggest installations was Baymax, a character from the Disney movie “Big Hero Six.” 

“He’s a futuristic hero who diagnoses illnesses,” said Joe Burnell, an architect and project manager at RTKL Associates. “So what he’s doing here is diagnosing hunger, and curing it with cans.”

The squad from BSA LifeStructures decided to build the "Canley Cup" using green beans and tuna cans. Why? Because they had the right hue of chrome. In the end, 1,680 cans used to create the cup, sitting atop a platform with the Chicago flag. 

“We thought something to celebrate the Cup would be good, now that it’s been here three times in six years,” said Manish Shah, an office director for the firm, as his colleague Aaron Detmer carefully stacked tuna around the rim of the cup. “Sometimes the most popular ones are things people recognize.” 

The teams had from about 5 p.m. to 6 a.m. to build their designs. Many were only just getting to the heart of it around 10 p.m., including the massive, half-finished Baymax near the middle of the ground floor.

By morning, the floor was littered with elaborate structures that will come down once their purpose had been served. 

Visitors are free to view the Canstruction sculptures on the ground floor of Merchandise Mart every day during business hours until September 7, when they'll be disassembled and the cans will be donated.

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