Boston architectural company Payette has been recognized as the "spotlight firm" at this year’s CANstruction event to benefit the Greater Boston Food Bank.

At the annual event to fight hunger in Boston, Payette and other architects and engineers built giant sculptures made entirely out of canned foods. This year’s theme, "Hunger is no laughing matter," inspired sculptures of comedian Conan O’Brien, Cookie Monster, and Garfield eating lasagna, to name a few. Payette’s sculpture was a replica of the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show.

Each year the CANstruction committee chooses to highlight one of the participating firms. Due to the fact that this is the 15th anniversary of the event, and Payette was an integral part in establishing the program, the firm was chosen as the 2010 spotlight firm, according to a statement. Payette has participated for 13 of the 15 years that the event has been hosted in Boston.

ARC/Architectural Resources Cambridge won the best meal" award for the competition.

ARC "mapped" the city’s neighborhoods, creating a 3-dimensional surface graph of the city of Boston, representing relative levels of hunger in each neighborhood. Hunger levels were determined using statistics on median household incomes as a measure of relative levels of hunger, according to a statement.

This year, participating firms include Payette, ADD Inc./Arrowstreet JV, ARC Architectural Resources Cambridge, CBT, EYP Einhorn Yaffee Prescott, GENSLER, Nitsch Engineering, PCA Prellwitz Chillinski Assoc., Robert Silman Assoc., Simpson Gumpertz and Heger, Symmes Maini & McKee Assoc., TRO Jung/Brannen and Wiss, Janney, Elstner/Northeastern University/JV.

It is sponsored annually by the Society for Design Administration (SDA) and the Boston Society of Architects (BSA) and is a trademarked design/build international competition. Since its inception, 10 million pounds of food have been donated to aid in the fight against hunger, according to a statement.