A Pool in the City

Abstract

American municipal pools exist in cities, often surrounded by car-centric spaces such as freeways, parking lots, big-box stores, and industrial sites. They have traditionally employed a typology of “maximum building, minimal boundary.” This typology concentrates the bulk of design and construction in one building (with essential amenities such as changing rooms), whereas the boundary, required by law for safety purposes, is lightly built and often realized in the form of chain wire fencing. Careless boundaries like chain wire fencing not only exposes swimming pools to their industrial, car-centric sites, but it also heightens an image of exclusion that has long plagued American municipal pools. This thesis proposes a typology of “maximum boundary, minimal building” for the American municipal pool. Through a study of materials, lighting, proportions, tectonics, and local construction practices, this new swimming pool seeks to revive the American municipal pool as an active public space by altering the way swimmers relate to their surroundings and the way the public relate to the pool.