VLK Architects Wins the People's Choice Award as They "Spin Out Hunger" at the 2018 Canstruction Competition
Houston, Texas – On November 3rd, 14 organizations and three schools competed in the 2018 Houston Canstruction® competition. VLK Architects teamed with freshmen and sophomore students from Cypress-Fairbank ISD’s Bridgeland High School to create an impressive design to “Spin Out Hunger,” earning the People’s Choice Award for the second year in a row.
Canstruction® is a design-build competition that allows participants to submit a theme and build a structure out of donated canned goods. Hosted at City Centre on the west side of Houston, the designs remain on display during voting and are then distributed to local food banks just in time for the holidays.
This year’s overall concept was the Tasmanian Devil chosen to help “Spin Out Hunger.” The Looney Tunes character was built from 200 refried bean cans, 700 black bean cans, and approximately 100 Manwhich cans. The tornado is made up of one of the Houston Food Bank’s most needed items, red tomato sauce, which was used for the core, and Valencia rice for the outer rings. Rice was chosen because of the added texture and movement that it creates. Bags of Salvadorian red beans were utilized for Taz’s back side to add a fur-like texture and unique color to the structure.
“The students chose to ‘Spin Out Hunger’ with Looney Tunes cartoon character, Taz. We learned early on that this task was going to be more challenging than we thought to create,” said VLK Interior Designer and first year team mentor, Clarissa Quintana. “It was really exciting to see all the students work together to use the resources we had to design a bigger and better Taz than what we initially planned. I am excited and ready to see what the students plan next year!”
“Another successful year of Canstruction in the books for VLK Architects and Bridgeland High School,” said Krista Thomas, VLK Architectural Intern and team captain. “Every year I am amazed about how much talent and creativity that the students bring for this competition. VLK gives them the opportunity to step outside the classroom and compete alongside professional firms. This year was slightly more difficult than years past due to a more complex design. With great teamwork, we were able to pull it off.”