You’re Swimming in it Posted on October 31st
This is not a complete project, but the beginings of what I would like to work on for my final project.
My previous post was about the West Nile problem in the Southwest in relation to the housing bust. Forclosed houses with pools are left empty and the pools unmanaged, thus a mosquito problem. Initially, local municipalities were dumping pesticides into the swimming pools, but a more recent approach has been to put fish in the pools. The fish require no maintenance and eat the mosquito larvae.
As Amanda mentioned during my presentation, it seems odd that there is a problem of too much water in a region where water is a scarcity. So, I would like to find a way to use these pools as existing infrastructure for a new system of water management. This project has potential to go in a few directions, and honestly I am not quite sure where to take it yet……..here are my thoughts so far.
I started by looking at suburban development and it’s history. What was fascinating was the idea of the sub-urbs as a means of civil defense. Many leading scientist (such as Norbert Wiener - the founder of cybernetics) and planners believed that the only way to ensure survival of atomic weapons threats was to disperse the American public. There is a bit more info. in the slides below.
For a quick analysis, I focused on the city of Hemet, California. Hemet was the first city I heard about with a Mosquito infestation caused by abonded pools (newshour). Hemet, it seems (after looking with google earth), is full of new housing subdivisions. I picked one in order to better understand the parameters of this project. I did some very basic counting and made some very general assumptions and believe that reclaimed swimming pools as infrastructure is a viable project (look at the slides below).
I imagine that this existing infrastructure could do a few different things.
1. The bottled water industry is being pressed to print the source of its water on their packaging and is balking in large part because they are simply repackaging tap water. That along with the environmental cost of shipping water around the world in disposable containers has become a concern. (think outside the bottle) I feel that recontextualizing municiple water supplies could make the public more aware and protective of their resources.
2. In order to create a large enough infrastructure to serve a broad public, multiple swimming pools would have to be physically linked. What else could this expanded infrastructure allow? Could this be a means of moving goods and services at a domestic scale? (perhaps a sort of LazyRiver) Or, better yet, a new form of transportation…..swim to your neighbors house. (ala The Swimmer see the trailer below)
3. Lastly (but if you have any suggestions…please let me know), this could serve as a way of replenishing groundwater supplies. Groundwater recharging is becoming a necessity for many regions. Many undergroung aquifers are being depleted faster than they can be renewed. The swimming pools would need little modification (because it is already in the ground) to get water back into the soil.
those are my general thoughts…..any input would be appreciated………thanks
