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With +Pool, Design Trio Aims to Make Manhattan's East River Swimmable

By Rain Noe - June 22, 2011

in Social Impact

Manhattan is an island flanked by two rivers, but as hot as the summers get, you'd never dream of swimming in either of them. The conventional wisdom is that they're both polluted and, if the movies are to be believed, lined at the bottom with cement-shoe-wearing mob informers.

That hasn't stopped designers Dong-Ping Wong of Family and Archie Lee Coates IV and Jeffrey Franklin of PlayLab from starting "+Pool," an intriguing idea to install a public swimming pool (in Manhattan's East River on the Brooklyn side, top photo, and the Hudson on the Jersey side, below). The walls of the pool would be constructed of filtration materials that would eliminate the nasties in three stages, blocking out everything from garbage to bacteria.

The most important aspect of + Pool's design is that it filters river water through the pool's walls - like a giant strainer dropped into the river. The concentric layers of filtration materials that make up the sides of the pool are designed to remove bacteria, contaminants and odors, leaving only safe and swimmable water that meets city, state and federal standards of quality. This pool will be the first of it's kind, which is of course very exciting, but really we just want to be able to swim in the river.

We also wanted the + Pool to be enjoyed by everyone, at all times, which is why it is designed as four pools in one: Children's Pool, Sports Pool, Lap Pool and Lounge Pool. Each pool can be used independently to cater to all types of swimmers, combined to form an Olympic-length lap pool, or opened completely into a 9,000 square foot pool for play.

+Pool has proven to be the latest Kickstarter runaway success, hitting its $25,000 target in just six days. Check it out:

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BruceWright

13 years ago

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To correct the record, this is not the first of its kind. In 2008 New York Architect Meta Brunzema designed a floating pool that allowed the Hudson River to flow through it. It was created to celebrate the cleaning of the Hudson after years of pollution.
Find a link here: http://csds.pratt.edu/river_pool.html
Was published in our Fabric Architecture magazine in Nov/Dec 2008.
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Semiot

13 years ago

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Hipstomp, sorry as a Brooklynite I must correct you, it's New York's East River, not Manhattan's. The East River the meat in the Brooklyn/Manhattan sandwich.

Also, that pool is a frick'n incredible idea.
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Ted Ullrich

13 years ago

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The second view is also of the East River, taken from the East River State Park in Williamsburg.

http://gowanuslounge.blogspot.com/2007/05/finally-east-river-state-park-opens.html
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