LERA Sails to Victory for CANstruction's 25th Anniversary!

LERA's entry for this year's Canstruction New York, titled "A Rising Tide," was awarded Best Original Design, the top prize at the 25th anniversary of the annual charitable design competition. Team members were on hand to accept the award at the annual Canstruction Gala on Monday, November 6th at Battery Gardens Restaurant.

Click here to download a press release.

Click here to view photos from Build Night.

(Scroll down for a 360° video of the model in virtual reality!)

Canstruction is an international charity competition where architects, engineers, contractors and students compete to design and build giant structures made entirely from unopened cans of food. This year, LERA's all-volunteer team dedicated countless hours of their free time to design and construct an 8-ft sailboat made from over 4,000 sardine cans, which will be donated to City Harvest, a local food charity. Our title, "A Rising Tide," is in reference to the famous slogan, "A rising tide lifts all boats," a timely reminder that when we give to those in need, everyone in our community benefits.

Click here to vote for "A Rising Tide" in the People's Choice Award!

Photo: © 2017 Ashok Sinha

The tall, slender sails of the boat’s structure were made possible by a support system consisting of internal vertical cans and alignment rods. A combination of manual craftsmanship (for the larger layer boards) and CNC machine routing (for more complex cuts) was used to produce the shape of each layer. Prior to construction, we used IMMERSIFY to bring our model into Virtual Reality in order to preview how it would look and make live, precise adjustments to the positioning of each can.

Click here to view LERA's past entries.

Canstruction is open to the public until November 15th. Be sure to stop by Brookfield Place to check it out!

Pictured (R to L): Elias Matar, Partner; Eddy Roberts; Magen Mintz; Evram Dawd; Amit Nambiar; and Mary Beth D'Amico.