The "Plus Pool“, A floating pool in the East River, New York, designed by the creative studio PlayLab, received the green light to proceed with the planning.
The non-profit organization + Pool has spent the past 10 years developing the technology behind this mega-pool, and raising funds to test prototypes. Now it has now received an "official confirmation to proceed with the due diligence" by the Economic Development Corporation of New York, and is free to proceed with the next stage of logistics planning.
What is the Plus Pool, a "cleansing" pool?
The project is very interesting and responds to many of the needs that the future requires. First of all, overturn the concept of "low impact": an installation or a place must be designed to have a "high impact" on the environment, but of a positive type. And this special “+” shaped pool can filter up to 500.000 liters of river water every day.
Its special shape will allow it to host various activities: in its length, it will be an Olympic swimming pool: the two remaining "pieces" will be a swimming pool for adults and a children's pool.
A troubled swimming pool
The plans of the Plus Pool had stalled due to the pandemic, but now they will continue fast, according to the designers. The pool assignment location is north of the Manhattan Bridge. It will be special: quite a few people will be able to swim each day while the mega facility cleans the waters of the East River.
Plus Pool engineers used software developed by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), US environmental protection agency, to model a special membrane filtration system. The barriers around the floating pool will filter water from the saltwater estuary that divides Manhattan and Brooklyn.
There is a need to work on the water
Water quality is a gigantic concern, especially in a country like the United States. One law, the Clean Water Act of 1972, has mitigated the problem somewhat, but the truth is that tens of billions of liters of rainwater contaminated by wastewater they still end up in rivers like the East River through the old sewer systems.
In 2019 PlayLab floated an installation (always in the shape of a plus) that somehow "predicted" the pool. The big plus in LEDs changed color by virtue of the water quality in the East River. Needless to say, it will have remained red for quite a while, given the river's poor bathing ability.
