New York architect Dong-Ping Wong, who worked as a lead designer on a floating swimming pool proposed for New York City, says he was “frozen out” of the project.
In a post on Instagram, Wong addressed the recent news that the +Pool project was granted $16 million to advance, as well as his concerns for the project, which he writes “slowly gave way to interests that prioritized money, exposing the project to the levers of gentrification”.
Wong, now director of New York-based practice Food Architects, led the design of +Pool under defunct studio Family along with PlayLab Inc co-founders Archie Lee Coates IV and Jeff Franklin and architect Oana Stănescu when it “was launched as a lark” over 10 years ago, in 2010.
The floating, cross-shaped pool, which will reportedly filter up to 1,000,000 gallons of river water a day without the use of chemicals, was designed to float in the waterways of New York City to provide publicly accessible swimming.
“The goal wasn’t to just build a pool”
“When I started +Pool, the goal wasn’t to just build a pool,” said Wong in his post. “The goal was to see if it was possible to make big civic changes to the city from the ground up for places that often get overlooked.”
Since the project’s launch, it has faced a series of starts and stops, as both its now-patented technology and design faced approval from municipal, commercial and environmental organizations.
In 2015, the 501c3 non-profit Friends of +Pool was formed to be the organising body of the project.
“When we decided to start a non-profit in 2015, it was based on the ideal that a non-profit would protect the project from private interest and ensure it remained a project for everyone,” Wong said in his post.
“I was never invited back to a board meeting”
Since 2022, Wong states in his post he began to be “frozen” out of the project in light of raising internal concerns about the “long-standing lack of diversity of the +Pool board”.
“These issues were repeatedly dismissed, I was frozen out of the project, and to date I am unaware of any true community involvement with the residents of Chinatown,” he wrote on Instagram.
“I wrote to the board in 2021 that we should establish a clear position on race and discrimination as an organization,” Wong further explained to Dezeen.
“About a year later, I joined a board meeting and listened as the board discussed a DEI statement that they were preparing. In the statement, the only actionable item was to take an annual survey of the number of people of colour involved in the project,” he continued.
“I asked whether there was more being done and they said no. After that board meeting, which was in April 2022, I was never invited back to a board meeting, design or engineering meeting, gala or fundraising event or any internal discussions.”
A location for +Pool has also been disputed. In 2021, New York’s Economic Development Corporation confirmed a provisional site for the project north of the Manhattan Bridge.
This location sits between Wong’s residence and the Food Architects office in New York City’s Chinatown neighbourhood. While +Pool was “never originally intended to come to Chinatown” according to the designer, its proposed location further cemented a personal connection to the project for Wong.
Funding approval “bittersweet”
“I’m Chinese-American, and we’ve had the office in Chinatown for seven or eight years, depending on where you count the borders of Chinatown,” he told Dezeen.
“I felt like I could speak to and about the project and its relationship to underserved communities in a way that was much more personal and specific than I could before it was located here.”
Wong called the recent $16 million of funds approved for the project “bittersweet”.
“With +Pool closer to reality, I worry about how the leadership will treat the neighbourhood’s long-standing communities-the majority of whom are people of colour and lower income,” he said.
“I’m concerned about what concession to access might be made in the service of commercial interest and about what agreements with predatory developers might be taking place without my knowledge.”
Friends of +Pool recently announced the $16 million will be used to create a 2,000-square-foot version of +Pool to be built for testing come summer 2024, with plans to open it to swimmers in 2025.
According to the team, it will also serve as a pilot project for +Pool’s design and technology to be used throughout New York state.
The images are courtesy Friends of +Pool.
