Located in a rented lot in Brooklyn, there exists a “lo fi urban country club”. A “secret” space that opened up July 4th weekend and is complete with three connected pools, a boccie court, some lounge chairs, a grill, and cabanas. What makes this place unique is the fact that the pools are housed in dumpsters! Yes, dumpsters.
Although this place is supposed to be exclusive and a secret (the fact that I’m sitting in California writing about this after reading an article about it on NYTimes.com doesn’t do much for that, I suppose), there are some amazing concepts at play here. Sure this could be just a hipster fad whose “exclusive” atmosphere gives certain bragging rights to those that enter. But it could also be the start of an incredibly worthwhile trend.
The idea, said David Belt, a real estate developer and the president of Macro-Sea, the company behind the pools, was not to create an exclusive party destination but to experiment with underused space and materials, repurposing them with urban renewal in mind.
“It’s a very simple concept,” said Jocko Weyland, Macro-Sea’s project manager. “There aren’t that many places to swim in New York.” And Dumpsters “are everywhere; they’re ubiquitous.”
So rather than making dumpster pools an attraction, I wanna see repurposed materials become ubiquitous. The best part about recycling is the fact that everyone can (and should) do it. And though generally, it bothers me a tad to see people use that sort of thing to make money, the buzz created about these dumpster pools could be a great start to encouraging others to notice the bountiful potential our urban surroundings hold. Something we’ve tried to promote here at SuperForest time and time again. SuperForester Julius wrote about his experiences “shopping” while visiting New York. SuperForester Jackson created a beautiful carbon negative bench out of stuff he found on the street (perhaps while performing one of those “shopping trips” Julius mentioned). SuperForester Iman created a small coin purse out of annoying junk mail!
And apart from that creamy goodness, if nothing else, thanks to these swimming pool dumpsters, “dumpster diving” has a new meaning!
Love!
(Read about it on NYTimes via My Modern Met)
P.S. I know what you’re thinking, what’s next? A dumpster hot tub!? As the wonderful Julius showed us last year, it’s already been experimented with!!!
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