Canstruction 2007

My legally-truant daughters and I had a great time today at Canstruction, the annual "design/build" competition for which architecture, design and/or engineering firms conceive of and construct huge sculptures made almost entirely of cans of food. At the end of the exhibit, the day before Thanksgiving, all the cans go to City Harvest, to be distributed to food banks, shelters, soup kitchens, senior homes, etc., all over the city. The 2007 version had 42 entries spread throughout the 15 floors of the New York Design Center... in the building's lobby they give you a list of sculptures and showrooms, and then send off to find them, adding a fun, treasure-hunt aspect to the exhibition. Here's a few of our favorites. As always, click on any image to enlarge:

Bo's vote to win the People's Choice Award.


Love the Lava Lamp!


More teams than ever created images using the colors on their cans' labels. This cut-in-half Mona Lisa was among the most cool.


The tricked-out Smart Car


Nice use of non-cans—Tic-Tacs, marshmallows—for the eyes.


The best of the four (!) ice cream cones done this year. We liked the tricky black-and-white soft-serve, as well as the thin base of the waffle cone.

Gumballs.


Da-dum. Da-dum.

The DNA Strand looked impressively precarious.

Humpty Dumpty got Co's and my vote for the People's Choice.

Canstruction is on view, Monday to Saturday, through November 21. The New York Design Center is located at 200 Lexington Avenue, between 33rd and 32nd Streets. Admission is one can of food, but you can certainly donate more.