Turns out it is OK to play with your food: the  'Canstruction' exhibit to be opened at Exploris.

Scott Shell, left, and Christopher Bitsas of Duda/Paine Architects work on their bridge. Eventually there will be a train on the top of the bridge.

It just so happens that canned soup, tins of sardines, bottled water, vacuum-sealed sausages and sacks of dried beans, in the hands of architects and engineers, make pretty ingenious substitutes for Lincoln Logs and Legos.

”Canstruction” is an annual exhibit of sculptures built entirely from canned, bottled and bagged nonperishable food items at Exploris in downtown Raleigh. Triangle design teams responsible for the 10 structures on display this year installed them Sunday.

When the exhibit closes Jan. 8, the sculptures will be dismantled and the food donated to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina. “I hope people like tuna – we’ve got a lot of tuna,” said Ashley Morris, who collaborated with co-workers from the Durham firm Duda/Paine Architects to build a complicated scene of a train crossing a span bridge over water, with a sailboat on the water below. Morris estimated it would contain about 3,000 cans of tuna fish when done.

Visitors will also find a locomotive, complete with a steaming smokestack, built from canned soup and tins of tuna by students at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. A massive traffic cone constructed from orange-labeled cans of pinto beans. Even Dorothy's ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz -- red and white Campbell's soup cans providing the ruby tint -- on a square of yellow brick road.

Canstruction is part of a national design competition and food drive sponsored by the Society of Design Administration and the American Institute of Architects. More than 40 cities stage regional competitions. In North Carolina, the only other city competing is High Point.

Awards are given out in regional competitions for most ingenious structure, the best use of can labels in a design, and even for "best meal," which takes into account the contents of the cans and packaged foods used. National judges look at the regional winners and give out awards to the best of the best. There is no real prize, except for bragging rights. This is the seventh year in a row Triangle architects and engineers have competed. Since 1999, their handiwork has provided more than 137,000 pounds of donated food.

This year, for the first time, Exploris kept the museum open as competitors built their can creations from the ground up. Sculptures were to be completed by 8 p.m. Sunday. “We thought it would be fun for people to see everything going up,” said Sarah Wolfe, program events coordinator for Exploris.

Design teams take the contest seriously. Duda/Paine's team spent many a lunch hour at Food Lion, scouting out different can shapes and label colors. Some teams used computer software to develop three-dimensional models of their sculptures and calculate how many cans they'd need. Many teams built mock-ups beforehand to make sure their concept could be realized.

Ashley O. Hernandez Jr., an architect with Little Diversified Architectural Consulting in Durham, said the preparation paid off. His team arrived at Exploris a little after 8 a.m. Sunday and was putting the finishing touches on its Formula 1 racing car “Indy-can-opolis” project by about 1 p.m. Red-and-white Campbell's soup cans made up the body of the car, and sacks of dried black beans rolled around cans made wheels, the stripes on the packages lined up to resemble tire tread.

”I got in trouble because nobody wanted to use sardines,” Hernandez said, pointing out the slim tins that made up the car’s front wings. “It’s just really hard to get that look with any other kind of can.”

If you want to visit the exhibition:

WHEN: The exhibit officially opens Saturday (awards ceremony at 2 p.m.) and runs until Jan. 8.

WHERE: Exploris, 201 E. Hargett St., Raleigh. – NC, USA

MUSEUM HOURS: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.

COST: Free with regular admission to Exploris: $7.95, $6.95 for age 60 and older, and $5.50 children ages 4 to 11.

CONTACT: 1 919 834-4040

WEB SITE: www.canstruction.org