+ Pool is a collaboration between the design studios Family and PlayLab to create a floating pool for everyone in New York City's rivers. Lead designer Dong Ping Wong recently appeared on the Pool Magazine podcast discussing the project.
The goal of the initiative was to increase the public's use of the city's natural resources by providing a clean and safe method to swim in New York's seas.
Plus Pool, abbreviated as + POOL, is a project to build a floating swimming pool on the East River in New York City, on the Manhattan and/or Brooklyn banks; a permanent location has yet to be decided. The 9,300-square-foot (860-square-meter) pool would be filled with purified water from the river in which it floats. Family New York and PlayLab, the two firms behind it, have been raising funds for the project using the crowdfunding website Kickstarter.
The proposed cross-shaped, Olympic-sized pool will clean the East River while also offering a public venue for water-based enjoyment. The pool's current design would use a tiered filtration system to flush away up to half a million gallons of river water every day. The pool would be filled with over a quarter million gallons of filtered river water. The long-term goal is to raise a total of $15 million by 2016 to fully fund the pool.
