Macro|Sea wants nothing less than to remake America's countless abandoned strip malls. They're starting one dumpster at a time, experimenting with guerilla pool parties that take place in retrofitted trash containers. One day, they might be coming to an unsuspecting parking lot near you. Relax! Swimming in one of these is certainly no dirtier than gulping e.coli at one of the public pools that your kids love.
ReadyMade Magazine broke the story. Jocko Weyland, David Belt, and Alix Feinkind, were inspired by dumpster pools that were first created by a band in Athens Georgia. The team, which calls itself Macro|Sea, decided to resuscitate the idea. It took a mere 12 days to gather the materials—which are just a dumpster whose seams have been sealed up, a liner, sand to create a soft bottom, a tarp, and lots of water. The first pools were inaugurated at an undisclosed location in the wilds of Brooklyn, on July Fourth.
The designers hope to build and deploy them in the parking lots of abandoned strip malls—a larger urban revitalization project that they've also turned into a design competition called REBURBIA. As they write, "By stripping and altering its [strip malls] common architectural features, adding community space and involvement, and carefully selecting and curating vendors and the space itself, Macro-Sea hopes to create and promote a place for people to shop, meet, learn, and engage with one another." The dumpsters, meanwhile, show that "with not too much expense you can creatively reuse what is basically considered urban detritus and make something really cool and fun." More power to 'em.