Instead of swimming at Coles or Palladium next summer, what if you could do a few laps in the Hudson River? Without getting sick, that is.
Designers Archie Lee Coates IV and Jeffrey Franklin of PlayLab have partnered with Dong-Ping Wong of FAMILY Architects in a structural endeavor that could make that possibility a reality.
The two men have designed a large pool that would float in the Hudson River and filter out dirt from its water, creating a clean swimming environment for hundreds of New Yorkers. Four pools — a children’s pool, a sports pool, a lap pool and a lounge pool — would all connect to form the shape of a large plus sign.
Though the +Pool project, as it is called, is an innovative concept, Coates says a pool in a river is not a novel idea. New York itself has a history of floating pools and baths dating back to the 1800s. Even today there are a number of river pools around the world., but many of them are in rivers clean enough to swim in on their own, not in the Hudson, which is notorious for its questionable cleanliness.
To combat impurities in the water, the architects have teamed up with Arup, a designing and engineering firm, to create a pool partition that would disinfect and filter debris, grease, sediments and odor from the water. And after a year of researching, they are finally ready to test their invention.
The issue now, however, becomes funding.
“The total cost of the pool will be totally dependent on the filtration system,” Coates said. He pointed to the Floating Pool Lady, another floating pool built in New York, as a “good jumping off point” in terms of price. The Floating Lady Pool cost roughly $5 million to construct.
After testing is finished, the final hurdle will be the approval of the community and government. The pool, if approved, is estimated to be completed in the summer of 2012, a welcome addition for many.
“As a designer, I think this project would be a terrific addition to the waterfront,” said Louise Harpman, NYU professor of architecture, urban design and sustainability. “As for the technicalities, the +Pool folks do have some of the best engineers working on the project, so that certainly gives me confidence.”
Others, like Dr. Rachel Armstrong, an expert in synthetic biology and architecture and the co-director of Advanced Virtual And Technological Architectural Research, are pleased but somewhat skeptical.
“I love the idea,” Armstrong said. “However, I think it involves an awful lot of other things.”
She questioned aspects of the pool that are important to its workings — features like external microbes that swimmers introduce into the pool, and health and safety standards for swimming pools or water fronts. She also wondered whether the pool would be tip-proof and how environmentally friendly the motors needed to run the pool would be.
But for at least one New Yorker, the prospect of swimming in Hudson is a promising one.
“I would not mind swimming in it,” long-time swimmer and Brooklyn resident Nikolay Korotkov said. “I highly doubt that the water coming in the +Pool would be significantly dirtier than any YMCA pool.”