First-Year Design Students Build Food Pantry Reserves via CANstruction

One design team spreads their canned and packaged food items on the floor of Vol Walker Hall.

First-year Leadership by Design students organize cans to create a Rubik’s Cube.

One team constructs a seated turkey from cans of tomatoes, soup and corn.

Cans of Manwich and pumpkin were fashioned into a slice of pie, topped with bags of flour.

Judges Mandi Salov, Jane Gearhart, Jeannie Sugg, and Billy Fleming examine the Rubik’s Cube.

This design, “Come Hungry, Leaf Happy,” won the award for best overall design.

Students carry canned food out of Vol Walker Hall after the CANstruction event.

A student unloads canned food into a truck headed for Cooperative Emergency Outreach.

Photo Submitted

About 200 Leadership by Design students in the Fay Jones School of Architecture built designs out of donated cans and other food items during the fourth annual CANstruction event on Nov. 12 in Vol Walker Hall.

Using cans of ravioli, pork and beans, carrots, chicken noodle soup, pumpkin and kernel corn, their designs took myriad shapes.

Fifteen teams of Fay Jones School of Architecture students constructed a Christmas tree, house, space shuttle, slice of pie, Operation game, Tetris pattern, football stadium, turkey — even a Razorback. These first-year students in the Leadership by Design class were competing in the fourth annual CANstruction event on Nov. 12.

With their teams spread across the second floor gallery of Vol Walker Hall, about 200 students carefully arranged cans and other food items into their predetermined designs. They had just 30 minutes to complete their structures.

Students collected canned food and other dry goods for the event. In addition to cans, they used dry goods like bags of rice, pasta and flour, and boxes of pasta, brownie mix and instant oatmeal. Many food items were donated by Sam’s Club, Wal-Mart and Harps Food Stores.

Prizes were awarded for most cans, best overall design and best use of labels. The overall design winner was the team that formed a tree with fall leaves, laid out horizontally on a bench and named “Come Hungry, Leaf Happy.” The team that erected a space shuttle used the most cans, with 375. Teams who created a Rubik’s Cube and a Christmas tree tied for best use of labels. The Christmas tree, built flat on the floor, was made from cans of ravioli and green beans and bags of kidney beans, with cans of chicken broth arranged at the top for the star.

Judges for this year’s event were Jane Gearhart, wife of UA Chancellor G. David Gearhart; Jeannie Sugg, wife of UA System President B. Alan Sugg; Mandi Salov, adjunct professor of ceramics at the UA; and Billy Fleming, Associated Student Government president and a landscape architecture student.

Though it took them just a half-hour to fabricate their masterpieces, students disassembled them much quicker soon after the winning designs were announced. They carried the food to four pickup trucks waiting outside to take the haul to the food pantry at the Cooperative Emergency Outreach. A total of 3,831 canned and packaged food items were collected this year.

This event was the service project for the Leadership by Design class, which prepares students in the design programs of architecture, interior design and landscape architecture for the rigorous and time-consuming education. First-year students are grouped with upper-level mentors for the semester-long course to address issues of time and stress management, strategies for balancing school and life, and opportunities to get to know others within the design disciplines.