+ POOL Floating Filtration Research Platform and Rendering at Pier 35.
Left: + POOL water filtration unit demonstration project at Pier 35, 2024. Engineered by Arup.
Right: + POOL rendering at Pier 35. Designed by Family New York & Playlab, Inc . Image by Luxigon.
Rumors of a plus-shaped public pool coming to New York's waterways have been “floating” around for quite some time, but now the prototype has finally made a splash. Almost 15 years ago, non-profit organization +POOL envisioned a self-filtering floating pool on New York’s rivers that would allow everyone to access clean, swimmable water. Now, the small team of engineers have just secured a final location at Pier 35 on the East River, near Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
+POOL co-founder and architect Dong-Ping Wong and fellow designers, Archie Lee Coates IV, Jeffrey Franklin, and Oana Stanescu, first launched the idea for the floating pool on Kickstarter in 2015. They raised over $40,000 in just seven days, allowing them to test their filtration system at Brooklyn Bridge Park in Summer 2011. Since then, the team has expanded their project with a new Kickstarter campaign, additional funding, and further testing. The project is now in its final testing phase, meaning the +POOL could potentially open to the public by Summer 2025.
In 2017, +POOL launched a successful “Swim in the River” campaign, gathering over 10,000 signatures through an online petition advocating for safe river access. Hundreds of New Yorkers, ranging from 5 to 85 years old, wrote letters to the mayor backing +POOL. Their voices helped rally the support they needed to move forward.
Now, New York State and +POOL are collaborating to finance a three-month water filtration demonstration that kicked off earlier this month. A smaller, 2,000-square-foot pilot version of the pool has also been put in place, allowing the +POOL team to continue testing.
“Our prototype is in the water,” they say. “Today we are testing our Filtration Pilot so that tomorrow we can all swim freely in clean river water for the first time in a century.”
Once it's up and running, the 9,000-square-foot pool will filter a million gallons of New York City's river water each day. The pool will actually purify the water it's floating in, thanks to a unique system with three filtration layers and a final disinfection step, making the water completely safe to swim in.
The +POOL design not only helps clean up New York State's waters but also makes urban swimming accessible to everyone, no matter their age or background. There are sections for lap swimming, lounging, watersports, and kids’ activities. The configurations work on their own, can be combined to form an Olympic-length pool, or fully opened up into a massive 9,000-square-foot pool.
Check out renderings of the floating pool below, designed by by Family New York & Playlab, Inc, and find out more about the project on the +POOL website.
