There's been a lot of talk about the City of London's new vision for downtown. The vision is great. But part of it, as found in this post, includes an urban beach at the Forks of the Thames. Most people think it is crazy, and competely unneccessary.
But is it?
One-upping our craziness are three young creatives from NYC who plan to build a public swimming pool that literally floats in the extremely polluted East River between Brooklyn and Manhattan.
The clever project is called +Pool and the trio have successfully fundraised over $41,000 from Kickstarter towards creating the filtration devices for the pool.
"Everyone knows it's not the cleanest river in the world, but we think it should be...When people start seeing the river as a recreational resource, they will enjoy it and want to clean it up more."
+Pool seems crazy - but a sexy kind of crazy. It's worth noting that floating river-pools can already be spotted in Berlin, Germany. So, why not build a river-side beach in London? If you ask me, our version of waterside fun isn't crazy enough.
Comments
Neat! I'll be interested to see how far this project gets. IMO, ideas are wonderful (but easy) - moving from idea to reality is where things get difficult. I wonder who will champion London's urban beach?
Great post. People complaining that the urban beach is crazy are entirely missing the point. It is a crazy idea (and maybe not even crazy enough as you point out). City staff should be commended for dreaming outside of the regular staid box and not being afraid of inevitable debate which may lead to even more interesting ideas.