According to Chicago Architecture Today, “20 top local architectural and engineering design firms unleashed their precocious inner-child as they utilized over 86,000 full cans of food ranging from Spam to Campbell’s Soup to construct scaled-models of notable figures. These food items will be donated to the CFD at the conclusion of the exhibition.”

This would be amazing to see. The second Canstruction took place in June 2008, so I’ll keep my eyes open for the third one this summer. To see more images click here and then scroll down a bit. See images from the first annual Canstruction event.

If you’re interested in more edible structures check out the following….

• Offbeat Gingerbread Homes 2008
• The perfect ice cold summer structure
• Classic Offbeat Homes: No one I think is in my tree…
• How would you like to live in this vegetable?

[image via Chicago Architecture Today]

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Canstruction Architecture

This is a pretty basic contest – contestants must apply sustainable features to an edible gingerbread home. Each house must have at least 4 identifiable green home attributes and the whole darn house must be edible.

Last year’s winning house:

As you can see, last year’s winner had oodles of sustainable design aspects. You can see many more cool eco-homes at the BFAC2007 entries site.

You can enter the Bake for A Change contest up until Midnight PST, December 31, 2008. If you enter let me know – and good luck.

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Eco Gingerbread Contest

This gingerbread home, from Rock Recipes is not that offbeat, but I like it anyhow, and am especially impressed that it lights up.

The details on this lighted gingerbread home are extraordinary – see many close-ups here.

Will Alsop’s gingerbread version of Peckham Library in London via Gingerbread architecture at livee by architecture. PS no, livee is not a typo.

Modern ranch gingerbread house from abh75 – totally cute and simple. The glass around the door is an excellent touch.

A gingerbread Moomin house from Axis of Ævil – not sure what a Moomin is (prob some game/tech/oddball toy or character I haven’t heard of) BUT the house is extra adorable and unique, complete with shooting star!

And in risky gingerbread news, something I’m not sure I should post here, being that I myself and this blog are not exactly criminal, but still, I think you should check it out – Gingerbread Ghetto. This is not gingerbread architecture for the faint of heart, but some of the structures are pretty darn funny.

Bonus gingerbread: click here to see a gingerbread surprise that the kids will like.

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Offbeat Gingerbread Homes 2008 – Part Two

One of Offbeat’s favorite gals, Michelle Kaufmann has a killer (and gorgeous) template plus recipe posted that teaches you how to make your very own organic GingerLotus. Not quite as livable as the the mkLotus, unless you happen to be made out of sugary dough, but very cool.

Last year’s Gingerbread Village at the Seattle Sheraton Hotel featured many amazing edible homes. From Bay Area’s KMD Architects there was the beautiful “Chinese New Year”:

DLR Group managed a gravity defying “Planet Holidays”:

You can see and read about many more Gingerbread Village Houses in Constructing Christmas from The Stranger.

If you want to make your own mod gingerbread home, without all the fuss, snag yourself the personalizable modern gingerbread house from red envelope.

Cool for a kit, but I bet if you tried to make your own, it’d be even neater.

Stay tuned, because I’ve got more offbeat gingerbread homes coming up and the goods on a unique gingerbread contest you may enjoy entering.

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Offbeat Gingerbread Homes 2008 – Part One

First up this crumbling old mess of a house. Still, the design and uniqueness of it is pretty cool. Also, it’s oh so textured. Nice.

Secondly the pat of butter house; not that that’s it’s real name, it just strikes me as very butter-like. What do you think?

Yup, just like butter.

[images via stock.xchng]

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Stock Photo House Finds

[Image via here]

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The perfect ice cold summer structure

Did you make a guess yet?

What sort of structure will it be? Let’s see…

Strawberry structures! Here’s the deal. I’ve been sort of obsessing over the Strawberry Fields Forever cover by Ben Harper; for like a week. This is odd because:

1. I usually hate covers (I like maybe five – ten cover tunes period).
2. It’s not like I hadn’t heard this song before. I heard it when it first came out a LONG time ago. In fact, I really like I Am Sam, the movie it comes from.
3. As far as Beatles tunes go, SFF rates fairly low on my list of favorites. I love the Beatles, but was never into this particular song one way or the other.

I have issues.

I figured this would make a good classic post though, so here we go; some offbeat classic strawberry structures…

To learn more about these strawberry structures, or to see even more fruity structures, visit the original Offbeat Homes post, Sweet Fruity Structures.

As an extra treat, here’s the album version of my song obsession, just in case you need to hear it. There are some live versions floating around too, but oddly, I don’t enjoy them.

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Classic Offbeat Homes: No one I think is in my tree…

I’d actually rather live in something a little more sweet, like a blackberry for instance.
See more kooky homes at Funny Real Estate Photos at eBestAgent (lots of funny stuff).

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How would you like to live in this vegetable?

Click it. You know you want to.

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And the Link Award of the Week Goes To…

A year ago Offbeat Homes featured the fully restored version of the house where it all went down; crazy lamps, decoders, and of course the infamous Red Ryder BB Gun.

The Christmas Story is a slice of holiday cheer in my mind so this post deserves a second Christmas look. Click on the picture of the house to read the full classic post.

Your weekend challenge activity:

Unless you’re on the road to grandmas house, you still have time to gather the family and make some amazing gingerbread homes. Remember the gingerbread house post? I hope so; it was just back in October. I really liked that post — it was way fun. It’s time to take a look back at this post and see how inspired you can be at home with your own gingerbread.

Remember this one:

See The World’s Best Offbeat Gingerbread Homes for the full story and all the super edible homes.

Lastly:

The month is winding down but that doesn’t mean you still can’t win the December’s Reader Appreciation Contest. Give it a go. In fact you can get a big jump with; 15 Contest Bonus Points.

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Classic Offbeat Homes: “You’ll shoot your eye out!” (plus gingerbread!)