Cultural references abound at Corridor Canstruction event

CORALVILLE - For a few hours Saturday morning, it was not only OK to play with your food, it was expected.

The 7th Annual Corridor Canstruction event at Coral Ridge Mall allowed area students, community groups, engineers and architects to turn cases of canned goods, boxes of cereals and bottles of water into whimsical sculptures, all of which will be donated to local food pantries, crisis centers and shelters.

“It's definitely an outlet for creativity,” said Sally Obernolte, a member of Neumann Monson Architects' team.

Three months of planning went into the team's “Birds of a Feather Fight Hunger Together” Angry Birds design, along with 560 pounds of food.

The team spent $2,000 on their sculpture. Obernolte said most of that total was for the canned chicken used to construct the red bird.

“The cans are best for the round shape we need, plus it was a great food choice to donate to the food shelters,” she said. “We're hoping our design will be recognizable. It seems to be a huge pop culture hit right now.”

Lydia Fine, a member of the Corridor Canstruction committee, said pop culture trends are a common theme for the sculptures.

Which explains The Hunger Games' “CAN-ucopia” and the Nyan Cat sculpture, but history also had its piece in this year's competition. OPN Architects created a Titanic-themed sculpture, which sank 100 years ago.

The team chose their cans of beans, corn and tuna to match the ship's original colors, but also had fun with the design, placing two bear-shaped honey bottles at the helm of the ship, to resemble Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in James Cameron's movie.

Bags of white rice and bottles of water depicted the iceberg.

OPN Architects received the “Juror's Favorite” and the “People's Choice Award” in the professional awards, while College Community school district's elementary talented-and-gifted elementary students won “Best in Show” and “People's Choice Award” in the community/school category for their “Hunger Is No Walk In The Park” sculpture.

The students used 1,317 pounds of food items to create a swing, slides and teeter-totter. Students also asked mall patrons to deposit wishes in their sculpture's wishing well.

“My life is all about crafts, so this was a lot of fun,” said Grace Estenson, a Prairie View Elementary fourth-grader.

This year's Canstruction event set a record with 15 teams participating. Combined, they used 25,685 food items, collecting 21,355 pounds of food for area food pantries, crisis centers and shelters. The grand total for the food was $21,519. An additional $1,054.63 was raised by the public through the People's Choice Awards voting.

The sculptures will remain on display at the mall through April 22.

2012 Corridor Canstruction Awards

Professional Teams

---- Juror's Favorite and People's Choice Award: OPN Architects

---- Structural Ingenuity: Carlson Design Team

---- Best Use of Labels: Heery International and Tallgrass

---- Best Meal: Shive-Hattery Architecture-Engineering

---- Honorable Mention: Rohrbach Associates PC and Neumann Monson Architects

Community/School Teams

---- Best in Show and People's Choice Award: College Community school district's elementary TAG students

---- Best Meal: Taylor Elementary School

---- Structural Ingenuity: Christ Episcopal Church

---- Best Use of Labels: South East Junior High School

---- Most Creative: Prairie Creek TAG students

---- Most Unique: North Central Junior High

---- Most Whimsical: Center Point Urbana Middle School (black team)

---- Most Lifelike: Center Point Urbana Middle School (gold team)

---- Best theme: Cedar Rapids school district's PACT