Dumpster Diving

This is the coolest thing ever.  Credit Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish with bringing it to wider attention, credit Macro Sea with the idea of turning dumpsters into pools.  Awesome!

Having just returned from a fabulous weekend at my brother's house in the Philly suburbs, where I spent two days slothfully lounging around a georgeous pool, I can tell you that the resources put into a backyard pool are well, considerable.  It was while sitting around my brother's glorious pool that the thought occurred to me in a lightening bolt way -- the hot tub in my own backyard (created by the gay guys who did all the heavy lifting to turn my 3/2 bungalow rental into an adorable home) doesn't really NEED to be heated, does it?  It could be just a cool dunking tank for the summer months, right? Clean the darn thing out and fill it, treat it, turn on the jets (or not) and chill. 

I don't have enough room for a dumpster pool in my yard, but if I ever did, this would be my aesthetic, my own little bit of paradise.  A little decking, a little excavation, wow!  Macro Sea reports that the timetable of putting in a dumpster pool is as little as 12 days!

“We heard about dumpster pools—one was done by Curtis Crowe of the band Pylon in Athens, Georgia a few years ago, and others have done it, but usually smaller—and decided we wanted to do it this summer in Brooklyn as a test site/prototype. We (David Belt, Alix Feinkind, and myself, who are Macro-Sea) heard about it in late February. In late May we found the location, and from the time we got the dumpsters to the opening on July 4th was 12 days.

More photos of dumpster pools:

"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."Photo: Yana Paskova for The New York Times

Comments

[Nancy McDonnell]

I love it. I want one. But I think I'll go the route that you are a have a hot tub cold dunking tub instead!

Very cool!
:-)

[Tricia Molloy]

What fun! As a former Brooklyn babe, I can relate to getting creative with space. I remember my Dad always promising to turn our garage into a pool, with a diving board from our back deck. If I only knew about the dumpster idea we may have eliminated our tiny back garden and been the hit of the neighborhood.

[Maureen at IslandRoar]

What an awesome idea. This is so cool (pun intended)!

[Jordan Jumpman]

You are just brilliant, do you know this?