CANstruction 2025 – Snoopy’s House of Hope

At co-elevate, our mission goes beyond designing safe and sustainable structures. We are also committed to giving back to our community in meaningful ways.

We are proud to have participated in the third annual London Canstruction event which took place in White Oaks Mall from June 6th to June 13th.

What is CANstruction?

Canstruction is an international hunger relief charity that raises millions of pounds of food each year for local food banks. It brings together the creativity of architects, engineers, students, and volunteers to build giant structures entirely out of canned goods. Once the event concludes, all the food used in these creations is donated to local food banks.

This year CANstruction London chose World of Animation as their theme. All cans and funds were donated to the London FoodBank and Salvation Army, helping to support individuals and families in our community who need it most.

Our team - The Peanuts:

captain: Rachel Hawkins
co-captain: Neda Kaddoura
members: Cassidy White, Sahar Bader, Lyndon Murray, Steve Desjardine
supporters: Dylan Dowling, Kathi Lamprecht, Sommer Zebregts

How did we choose our design?

Many factors were considered when choosing the design, such as:

Availability of colour – It was important to choose a character using colours that were readily available in stores.
Variety of food – Finding the right colour was not enough, we also wanted to provide variety of product to allow for as many meals as possible for our cause.
Stability of structure – Damaging the donated cans was not permitted (includes taping the labels), so the structure needed to be stable without compromising the cans.
Bonus: Popularity of the character – To connect with the audience, we wanted a character known and liked by different generations.

The team brainstormed and presented some ideas, Snoopy was the clear winner.

Name of structure: Snoopy’s House of Hope

“I suggested this name because by donating cans, we are giving hope to those in need. Despite the hardships, there are still people out there trying to help one another” – Sahar Bader

Behind the Scenes

A lot of preparation was required by the Peanuts for the competition:

Team meetings to have a plan and distribute the work
Finding the right cans to be used for the structure
Sketch and modeling of the structure
Once we understood our structure it was time to order the cans to ensure they arrived for build day!
Stability – We chose to use sheets of plywood in between layers to distribute the loads and level the structure properly. Thanks to our sponsor Komoka Kilworth Home Hardware Building Centre for generously providing us with the sheets we needed to support our structure!
Other miscellaneous action items included painting the sides of the plywood to blend in with the structure, cutting them out to the shape of the layers it will be used for, having garbage bags, gloves, snacks and drinks for build day.

Build Day

It was finally time to find out: will building the structure be challenging, or a piece of cake?

The team transported the cans to White Oaks Mall ahead of time ready for the build. On June 6th, the team had a 6-hour window to assemble the structure- five builders and six hours to make it or break it. The team crushed expectations and completed the build in 3 hours!

What was the secret behind our success?

“I thought that it was going to be more difficult but when we got to site we all synced together and boom it was done” – Neda Kaddoura

“The build day was super efficient as we had every level planned out and labelled. I did not expect to be completed in just 3 hours. The only challenge that came up on build day is the top lip of some cans protruded out ever so slightly and that added up over the length and width of the whole house. We had cans teetering over some edges.” – Lyndon Murray

Canned items used to build the structure:

House Walls: Tomatoes chili, tomatoes spicy red pepper, Diced, sliced and white potatoes, chickpeas & sweet potato, lemon chicken orzo soup, and tomatoes, lentils and chorizo

House Roof: Refried pinto beans, red kidney beans, white kidney beans, black beans, chickpeas, peas, sliced carrots, peas and carrots, coconut milk

Snoopy and Woodstock: Solid white Tuna, flaked white tuna, flakes of turkey, peas, and boxes of spaghetti, tomato basil flaked light tuna, whole kernel corn

Other miscellaneous items: Condensed cream of mushroom soup, packs of whole kernel crisp corn, Sidekicks Mexican rice, Sidekicks Rice & Vermicelli Chicken Fried Rice, Sidekicks Rice & Vermicelli Harvest Chicken, and Thai red curry spice paste.

Total Number of Cans used: ~3130 Cans