Images show near-complete prototype of swimming pool designed to float in New York river
The first phase of a floating pool planned for the East River is nearing completion in Brooklyn, with a barge and an infiltration system designed to clean river water as it flows into the structure.
The in-progress pool, called Pool 1, is a rectangular pilot version of the larger +Pool concept, a cross-shaped floating pool that was first proposed for New York City in 2011 and has since faced a long road of city and state approvals.
Upon completion, Pool 1 is approved to float in the East River off of Pier 35 between the city's Two Bridges and Lower East Side neighbourhoods. A team is currently building the structure in Erie Basin Bargeport in Red Hook, Brooklyn before its installation at the Manhattan site.
The initial construction phases have focused on testing the concept's patented infiltration system and included towing the initial metal frame from Mississippi to New York City last summer.
The finalised version of +Pool is set to be a 9,000-square-foot (836 square metre) cross-shaped structure, where each arm holds different programming. Its filtration system, engineered in collaboration with Arup, is designed to filter river water into the pool's body without the use of chlorine.
The team's most recent update stated that "construction of the pilot pool's floating barge and innovative filtration system is nearing completion".
The team has also been prepping the site at Pier 35, including installing utility lines to power the pilot pool, and the eventual Olympic-length full design. The site initially "lacked the power, water, and sewer lines needed to operate the river-water-filtering swimming pool".
The project, run by non-profit Friends of + POOL, has grown from a local project into a statewide initiative.
It is supported by New York state governor Kathy Hochul under the NY Swims initiative launched in 2024. If the project is successful, +Pools would be deployed across water bodies in Upstate New York.
The +Pool team says it "has been actively coordinating with government partners" during the testing phase of the project and that a required "17 approvals across city, state, and federal agencies" have now been received.
The team said it is also coordinating with the Brooklyn Bridge-Montgomery Coastal Resilience (BMCR), a coastal flood-prevention project that shares the Pier 35 site.
A public demonstration of the project has been pushed back until 2027 from its original date this year, as +Pool is unable to "attach to the permitted sewer lines for waste discharge until the critical waterfront shoreline resiliency project is complete".
"While this shift comes at a cost to the organisation and the project, those realities will feel insignificant when we are living in a New York City that has advanced infrastructure to protect from storm surges while opening up safe public river access for healthful recreation," said Friends of + POOL managing director Kara Meyer.
The founders of architecture studio Playlab Inc Archie Lee Coates IV and Jeff Franklin, architect and founder of Food Architects, Dong-Ping Wong and architect Oana Stănescu first developed the project as a group of young designers before it went fully public.
Coates IV, Franklin and Stănescu are still attached to the project, but Wong has claimed he was frozen out of the project after raising concerns about diversity to the board.
Elsewhere in New York, a public pool in Central Park recently received a restoration.
The photography is courtesy Friends of + POOL.
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