Building pipeline to food bank

CAN-DO SPIRIT: From left, Carmen Warner, Michael Dowhan and team captain Andrea Torizzo discuss plans for their Canstruction project at Northeast Collaborative Architects’ Providence office. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
CAN-DO SPIRIT: From left, Carmen Warner, Michael Dowhan and team captain Andrea Torizzo discuss plans for their Canstruction project at Northeast Collaborative Architects’ Providence office. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

At a food pantry in North Kingstown in February, a husband and wife arrived with their two young children, in hopes of picking up enough nourishment to make ends meet through the month. The woman was working 24 hours a week, all the hours she could get, and the husband, who hopes to find a job in landscaping, takes care of the children.
“I talked with the family. This man told me he was drinking coffee and juice so the children could have food,” said Cindy Elder, spokesperson for the Rhode Island Community Food Bank.
“Sadly, the need for food in Rhode Island has continued to increase,” said Elder.” With the food bank feeding 68,000 people a month through its statewide network of food pantries, it continues to find avenues to meet the steadily increasing need since it supplied food to 37,000 people in 2008.
One of the more creative avenues to, literally, building up food supplies for the needy in Rhode Island is the Canstruction competition held this month in the Skybridge concourse at Providence Place mall. The event, which culminates with a March 17 judging, showcases innovative structures constructed with nonperishable food items, mostly cans, that eventually find their way to needy families through the food bank.
For the seven teams that participated this year, it was both an architectural challenge and a community service.
The competition, held every other year, pits teams of architects, builders and engineers in a fast and friendly one-day build-out that’s a result of many hours of planning, drawing and ordering cans with just the right color label to create an artistic statement and collaboration among many Rhode Island businesses.
“[We worked] at one of the shops testing ideas and the first one failed miserably,” said Bruce Vallone, a structural engineer with Odeh Engineers in North Providence, who is on a team that includes volunteers from Providence-based Durkee, Brown, Viveiros & Werenfels Architects.
“We’re only allowed to use certain materials. We’re using cans, some boxes of pasta, a lot of rubber bands and stretch wrap. We’re using some masonite – we’re only allowed to use a thin board to help level the cans,” he said. Vallone estimated his team’s project at about 8-or-9 feet high and about 10 feet across.
Although the subject of hunger is never to be taken lightly, the competition focuses on creativity. The one-day build-out and the structures are meant to capture public attention.
“It’s hectic. You wonder if your structure is going to stand up,” said Vallone. “The structures are often topical or pop cultural. The more bizarre and outlandish the design, the more attention it gets. Two years ago I worked on a lobster coming out of a pot and a giant ear of corn that was about 9 feet tall.”
Vallone, like many professionals who participate in Canstruction, gives to the community in many ways, including volunteering at the kitchen at Chepachet Union Church for their fish and chips dinners.
Giving has also been a longtime way of life for architect Andrea Torizzo of Providence-based Northeast Collaborative Architects. As Canstruction team captain for a group that includes volunteers from the urban design firm of Veri-Waterman Associates, Building Engineering Resources and Kasabian Construction, Torizzo before the competition said the team was doing a pre-build with about 400 cans to test out the plans.
“Our project will use about 1,200 to 1,500 cans and we chose to use foods that will make well-balanced meals,” said Torizzo.
The cans were ordered through the food bank for cost effectiveness and the ability to order large quantities of cans with specific labels that help make up the artistic part of the project.
The cost of the cans will be covered by sponsors who donated to the project, said Torizzo.
This year’s projects included designs with attention-grabbing themes focusing on baseball, video games, a “dump hunger truck” and Del’s Lemonade, among others.
An estimated 25,000 pounds of food from the competition will be donated to the food bank.
“Canstruction does a tremendous job of raising awareness among the general public about the issue of hunger,” said Elder. “People may walk right by as they’re shopping and witness these beautiful sculptures, and each sculpture brings to mind the level of need in Rhode Island.” •

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