VLK Participates in Canstruction's "United We Stand To End Hunger" Exhibition
Fort Worth, Texas - VLK Architects gathered at North East Mall last week to start building their structure for this year's Canstruction competition. Canstruction is an art exhibition that allows participants to raise funds to purchase canned goods and design a themed structure. Each structure remains on display in the mall for a week. After scoring, the cans are donated to the Tarrant Area Food Bank. This year's theme was 'United We Stand to End Hunger.' VLK chose to honor the five law enforcement officers that perished after the incident that took place on July 7th in downtown Dallas.
Richard Hunt, VLK Project Designer, assisted in planning the Canstruction design and helped ensure the structure honored our local police and DART officers.
"We hope to memorialize the sacrifice given to us by the ones who choose to protect and serve our way of life. The blue cans on the perimeter, along with the star void created by their arrangement symbolize the police force. The numbers on each segment represent the officers that lost their lives on that tragic day. Each segment grows in height as a way to symbolize standing up against the wrongs in our society, while supporting the ones who choose to fight these wrongs on our behalf," said Hunt.
To build this structure, VLK used approximately 2,275 cans of beans, diced tomatoes, and packages of spaghetti. In addition, about 14 employees worked meticulously, ensuring that the structure was assembled perfectly before scoring commenced.
On average, Canstruction has over 300 structures built, with an average of 2,000 cans on each every year. Therefore, there are roughly 600,000 cans donated for meals to feed the impoverished population all over the country.
"Canstruction was a wonderful experience this year! It is very rewarding to be able to give back to the community that VLK is so proud to be a part of," said Angela Mitchell, VLK's Team Captain. "The work that the Tarrant Area Food Bank does is invaluable, and we are honored to be able to help them feed the hungry in our community. A lot of team members from the firm helped out this year, from the design, to fundraising, to the build. We have enjoyed participating in Canstruction for many years and look forward to many more!"