A team of designers in New York, with the help of an international engineering firm, has completed the general design and feasibility analysis for a swimming pool that would float in the East River, filled with water strained from the surrounding waterway. The fantastic concept was conceived by Archie Lee Coates IV and Jeffrey Franklin of PlayLab along with Dong-Ping Wong of the firm Family New York, and according to the group's website, www.pluspool.org, the idea has received technical analysis and support from Arup, a global engineering company with locations in 33 countries, which has pronounced it doable. According to the team, the pool is basically a floating "giant strainer" dropped into the river, with water filtration membranes built into the walls of the pool to filter river water into clean, swimmable pool water. The concept for the strainer walls involves three concentric layers: the primary, outer layer filters down to 150 microns, eliminating everything from rats to large suspended solids; a secondary layer provides filtration down to much finer particles, including algae and organic matter; the third layer is a disinfection layer designed to kill bacteria and viruses. The current goal of the group is to beta test a prototype of the membrane wall to confirm the concept.
