The hard work of hundreds of well-intentioned, generous people was taken apart piece by piece yesterday at Pearlridge Center — all for a good cause.

Nine teams of architects, design and engineering professional volunteers, aided by Hawai'i Foodbank volunteers, Boy Scouts, community volunteers and art lovers teamed up to produce structures of canned food that were judged, given their appropriate rewards and then taken apart — can by can — and donated to the food bank.

Spokeswoman Deborah Sharkey said the annual event has donated more than 132,000 pounds of canned food to the food bank in the past three years.

The total amount donated this year has not been calculated, but Sharkey said it was "tens of thousands of pounds."

The event, known as Canstruction, is the largest one-day promotion for the food bank, boosters say.

The fanciful artistic statements were built on Aug. 15 and were displayed until yesterday, when they were deconstructed at the shopping center's Uptown Center Court.

People who came to ooh and ahh over the designs voted for a People's Choice award. It was a strictly one-can, one-vote system. People could vote for their favorite design by donating a can of food.

"The Train," by Parsons Brinckerhoff, chugged to victory.

The employees of KYA Design won the Structural Integrity award. They used 2,300 cans of Vienna sausage to create a giant shaka entitled, "Can You Say Shaka, Braddah?"

Architect Reid Mizue said he and about 20 fellow employees, working in teams of five, created the artwork, which was 8 feet by 8 feet by 8 feet.

"We used Vienna sausage because it's high in protein," Mizue said. "Also, the cans are easy to stack and the labels looked really good as the fingernails on the hand that make the shaka."

He called the design a "cantilevered technique that defied gravity."

The other winners:

• Jurors' Favorite: "Pound Out Hunger," by Fung Associates

• Best Meal: "USS Arizona Memorial," by Belt Collins

• Best Use of Labels: "Big Aloha Shirts," by WATG.