Leveraging our design expertise to help end world hunger

Atlas carries the weight of the world – or in this case, the problem of world hunger.

John Portman & Associates is pleased to announce that the firm’s CANstruction sculpture was honored for Structural Ingenuity at last night’s awards gala. The opportunity to help impact world hunger through participation in the Society for Design Administration/AIA Atlanta CANstruction® event was one that PORTMAN couldn’t pass up. To raise awareness of the drive to end world hunger, CANstruction brings together teams, led by members of the AEC community, to compete in designing giant sculptures made entirely out of canned foods. The resulting structures become art exhibits in each of the competition cities. At the end of the exhibitions, all of the food used in the structures is donated to the city’s local food banks.

For this year’s competition, an enterprising team of PORTMAN architects and engineers chose the theme of Atlas. Atlas has been carrying the titan responsibility of ending world hunger for way too long! It’s time for the rest of us to ‘Get off our Atlases’ and help take care of our community. When we all help out, this duty isn’t left a burden upon the few.

Just as we put people at the center of our architectural designs, this project is meant to engage people with the issue of world hunger. The green of the body draws a parallel between the land masses and all the people they hold. The blue of the globe represents the vastness of the problem. This delicious contribution is built entirely out of tuna – a rich protein source that the Atlanta Community Food Bank has listed as one of their most needed foods. (3168 tuna cans!) See a time-lapse video of our CANstruction come together.

PORTMAN is honored to leverage our design expertise to raise awareness of this critical issue. As we enter the holiday season, we’d also like to encourage you all to support your local food banks. One CAN make a difference!

Special thanks to our awesome CANstruction Team Members:

Shraddha Srivastav Strennen
Chase Parrish
Leland King
David Bond
Arie Bettsack
Toni Cliett
Matt Skarr
Brian Keele
Nghi Duong
Framarz Mistry
Amy Stinson
Andrea Teh
Kadambini Dodda
Mauro Buffa
Tae Kim
Tani Winata
Kelly Callen

We’d also like to extend our appreciation for their support to:
Louise Davie at ABC Imaging
Kroger