Temporary Pools

THYLO FOLKERTS - JARDIN PORTUAIRE TEMPORARY POOLS / POOL IS COOL

Founded in 2014 by Paul Steinbrück, the non-profit organisation Pool is Cool is of real interest for Brussels. Questioning waterscapes and how they are used, Pool is Cool is helping the city forging a debate around its water features.

The main aim was to reflect and propose solutions for open-air swimming pools but their insight went way further. It didn’t only tackled the pool system and creation of new open-air structures, it went searching for potentialities in the existing city network. Most of the performances had a limited budget and a temporary time schedule. The participative management and construction of the temporary structures creates bonds in between the volunteers and their interaction helped develop an Urban Common resource management.

Some of those examples are: swimming in La Cambre ponds, installing a temporary pool in a container in front of Bozar Museum, settling a sprinkler system to refresh or closing a roundabout to enjoy its fountain for a weekend. All of those ideas are full of potentials. They act as a social magnet and question the different unexploited usages that water component could reinvent.

Pool is Cool members also pushed the city to start testing water quality in natural water spaces, propelling a better water quality and rethinking nonrecreative water management.

This increasingly growing nonprofit organisation also proposed lately some consistent proposal for open-air swimming pools and its corresponding socio-economic protocols.