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 St?nescu 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 F...