See the Guggenheim Museum and Pizza Rat made from canned food

The annual Canstruction competition brings out architects’ creativity with grocery items

By Scott Lynch Nov 7, 2016, 9:10am EST

Photography by Scott Lynch

Architecture, design, and engineering firms from all over the city are once again flexing their creativity in Brookfield Place with the 24th annual Canstruction NY exhibition and competition. There are 25 teams this year, and their whimsical works use some 90,000 cans of food in total. After the exhibition is over, those will be donated to City Harvest, and then distributed to more than 500 food banks in the tri-state area.

It's obviously a great cause (viewers are also encouraged to bring and donate cans of unopened, high-nutrition food), but it's also a lot of fun, and local families and tourists had a blast this weekend wandering around the space and taking photos of all the sculptures.

Some favorites include Sonic's Speed Run to End Hunger by DeSimone Consulting Engineers, Be-Claws We Can! by Severud Associates, Hungry Like the Wolf by Leslie E. Robertson Associates, and The Infamous Pizza Rat by LANGAN.

The GACE Engineers team suffered catastrophe when their giant pair of scissors—called Cut Out Hunger!—was destroyed by gusty winds whipping through the building, but they were resolute and rebuilding with enthusiasm.

Canstruction New York 2016 will be on display in various lobbies and atriums within Brookfield Place from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. daily through November 16th. The donation bin is located on the second level at 230 Vesey Street.