‘CAN’-tilever Fever
In 2014, I had the privilege of leading a team of AEC professionals in one of the most joyful, purpose-driven design challenges of my career: CANstruction Chicago. Each year, architects, engineers, contractors, interns, vendors, and volunteers come together to build massive 10’ x 10’ structures entirely out of canned food—all of which is later donated to the Greater Chicago Food Depository.
That year, our team proudly christened ourselves Team POP — Power of Partnerships, and we set out to create something unmistakably Chicago. What began as sketches, planning meetings, can-testing experiments, and spirited design debates eventually became our installation:
CANtilever Fever — a playful structural tribute to Chicago’s riverfront and skyline.
We built a Chicago scene featuring:
• the iconic Chicago River complete with the iconic Chicago Boat Taxi,
• a pair of Chicago’s signature open-position bascule bridges,
• and a distilled skyline with the Sears Tower and John Hancock Tower rising behind it.
It was Chicago, reimagined in cans—to be built with intention.
Why CANstruction Matters ?
CANstruction is design with purpose.
It challenges the AEC community to think with discipline and heart—using material, scale, gravity, and coordination to create something beautiful that ultimately becomes something essential: food.
It transforms architecture into an instrument of service—literally. The cans donated after each exhibition become meals for families across Chicagoland.
Architecture becomes nourishment.
Design becomes generosity.
TESTING The Design Concept:
Chicago’s Iconic Bridges Reimagined in Cans
Chicago’s bascule bridges—frozen in dramatic open positions—are some of the most recognizable symbols of the city. We knew from the start they had to be the centerpiece.
The challenge?
Building sloped, cantilevered geometry out of cylindrical cans with no adhesives, no friction control, and limited structural tolerance. Every angle required experimentation:
• Which cans had the structural consistency to bear load?
• Which colors worked for legibility at scale?
• How do you maintain incline without collapse?
• How do you balance sloped geometry using only gravity, density, and teamwork?
We prototyped, stacked, tested, rebuilt.
We sketched elevations and stacking sequences.
We calculated loads based on baked beans vs. chili vs. pasta. (For the record: pasta cans are deceiving—they’re heavier than you expect.)
Somewhere between the prototyping and the recalculations, the build design stopped being merely a sculpture and became an expression of teamwork.
Build Day:
When the City Rose in Cans
Build day felt like controlled chaos—in the best way.
We arrived with pallets of cans stacked taller than we were, multiple booklets of color coded floor plans for every horizontal ‘plate of cans’, and a volunteer army ready to build.
The team divided instinctively:
• the Bridge Crew,
• the Skyline Crew,
• the River and Boat Team,
• and the all-important QC leads, calling out every misalignment and micro-lean.
Calls echoed across the build site:
“Check that slope!”
“Swap these labels—color gradient’s off!”
“Bring a lighter can—we’re tipping!”
“Check the alignment!”
“Hold the load—reset that row!”
The build forces you to reconsider materiality, stability, and structural behavior through an unconventional medium.
Can by can, our build rose,
The skyline stretched upward.
The river curved into place using bottled water.
The bridges found their balance and locked into their open sculptural stance as they cantilevered over the Chicago boat taxi below.
And suddenly, there it was:
CANtilever Fever, complete—whimsical, structural, unmistakably Chicago and undeniably ours.
Local news stations like NBC Chicago visited to film the installations, including ours. Watching visitors point, smile, and take photos reminded me why we build: to create connection.
After the exhibition closed, every can became nourishment for families across Chicagoland.
Architecture became care.
And CANS of food a fundamental form of shelter.
Project Stats (from our official team sheet)
CANtilever Fever — CANstruction Chicago 2014
• 6,000 cans used
• Building blocks : Cans of -
• Dakota’s Pride Baked Beans (Original & Maple)
• Bon Italia Pasta & Meatballs
• Happy Harvest Peas
• Chilli Man Chili
• Bottled water for the river
• Benefiting: Greater Chicago Food Depository
• Presented by: Whole Foods Market & Chase
• Built by: Team POP — Power of Partnerships
• Sponsors included: FGM Architects, Arup, Trendway, Herman Miller, Maharam, Office Concepts, (re)group, and more.
• Exhibited : Aug 14 – Sept 8, 2014
Power of Partnerships: The Heart of the Build
CANstruction projects live or die by the strength of the team. Our roster included architects, engineers, designers, vendors, interns, and volunteers from across multiple firms of Chicago’s AEC community:
FGM Architects / Arup / Trendway / The Dobbins Group / Maharam / Herman Miller / Office Concepts / (re)group
Each person contributed something irreplaceable:
• the engineer who recalculated a leaning tower section,
• the architect who refined the bridge slope for stability and perfected the skyline proportions,
• the designer who designed the build plans and graphics for T-shirts and build day info boards,
• the vendors who helped co-ordinate storage of 6000 cans and provided spaces for meetings and mockups,
• the volunteers who lifted palettes, stacked cans, adjusted them, and kept morale high throughout build night.
Partnerships built the project.
Partnerships held it together.
Partnerships made it meaningful.
When Architecture FEEDS
After the exhibition closed, every single can— all six thousand of them—went straight to the Greater Chicago Food Depository.
Our skyline dismantled itself into meals.
Our design transformed into nourishment.
Our architecture became service.
The most meaningful transformation wasn’t the skyline we built.
It was the impact it became.
The T-Shirt:
When Architecture Is Literally Built Out of People
Team POP believed collaboration was our greatest material—and I wanted our team shirts to reflect that spirit.
I designed a graphic of the open bridge constructed entirely out of the names of every team member. No lines, no strokes—only typography arranged to form the silhouette of the bridge.
The bridge wasn’t merely a symbol.
It was a portrait of collaboration and partnership.
When we submitted the design to CustomInk for printing, something unexpected happened:
Our shirts were featured in CustomInk’s “Ink of the Week” which gave our project visibility in the community.
That recognition wasn’t about the shirt—it was about the spirit behind it. Design resonates when people are its foundation.
Looking Back:
What CANtilever Fever Taught Me
CANstruction taught me something fundamental:
Architecture isn’t only about creating buildings.
It’s about creating impact.
Whether it’s volunteering for Open House Chicago, designing a hotel, writing a blog post, or leading a team in a competition where structure becomes service—every act of design shapes how people live, move, feel, gather, or eat.
Sometimes architecture speaks in glass and steel.
Sometimes it speaks in cans.
Leading Team POP affirmed that architecture lives in:
• collaboration,
• community impact,
• creative problem-solving,
• and the joy of building something that matters.
Design can be playful and purposeful, structural and symbolic—
and sometimes, it can win “Ink of the Week” while feeding thousands.
