NEW YORK—Summers in New York are so hot and humid, for many, jumping into the water is the best way to avoid the heat. Two years ago, people started turning Dumpsters into pools in Brooklyn. Then the trend migrated to Park Avenue, where three Dumpster pools appeared last August.
Meanwhile, a trio of designers was thinking on a much grander scale.
Jeffrey Franklin and Archie Lee Coates IV of PlayLab and Family‘s Dong-Ping Wong (featured in the video above) wondered: Why not cool off by swimming in the water that surrounds the island of Manhattan? Over the past year, their visionary concept—installing a pool in the East River—has taken off.
The +Pool project is a floating pool that would make it possible to swim in clean East River water by filtering the river water through the pool’s walls to remove bacteria and other contaminants.
A major engineering firm has signed onto the initiative and a Kickstarter campaign to raise $25,000 to pursue the idea was funded in just six days and with 15 days to go has attracted more than $35,000.