The peri-urban Revitalization Element [puRE] is a catalyst for fostering sustainable development within existing suburban areas, by re-envisioning a classic suburban icon – the swimming pool -and transforming it into a productive, water-treating element within a community.
puRE’s strategy links individual residences to common localized resources. It integrates wastewater treatment, food production, power generation, and community infrastructure all-in-one! Able to service up to five homes per unit, puRE intakes all household wastewater and outputs clean, potable water for all to enjoy. Utilizing the principles of constructed wetlands, puRE treats wastewater through six successive purification stages. The first two stages occur within closed treatment tanks, before entering the purification cells. These purification cells contain various aquatic plants and animals which remove pollutants naturally. Small-scale food production is a by-product of this natural process, with the production of tilapia, catfish, freshwater clams, and salad greens to name a few. The solids from the wastewater stream are filtered and directed to a communal methane digester. This provides puRE the capability of generating power for its users. puRE enlivens banal suburban areas, with lush, vibrant life-systems. The system rehabilitates resource-depleting suburban icons into resource-generating community resources. puRE provides the impetus for a generation of sustainable suburban communities.
Congratulations Craig! I hope you win with this innovative project design. It would be wonderful to see it developed and help those in need of recreating their sub-divisions. Keep up the great work!
I’m cheering for you, Craig.
Very interesting proposal. I would like to see more about the technology – i.e. the neighborhood system (as opposed to the specific site).
My comment is in support of Craig England’s project. I feel it is innovative and on the cutting edge of today’s architectural knowledge. I feel if developed it could certainly help with the restructuring of the sub-divisions and help those that have had to leave their homes. It is a new era and we need projects that are on top of these new systems so that we don’t waste our resources.
Thank you for accepting and putting forth this project as one of the finalists.
Beverley Urquhart
Interesting and inventive. Pools ha e always been a wasted source of secondary uses such as backwash greywater
Interesting and creative. Pools have always been a source of wasted resource both from the point of view of overflow and backwash, and from the heatin aspect.
Great system design! It displays a thorough knowledge of sustainable systems as well as an innovative vision of a solution. This is definitely a design that should be considered as a way to improve the lifestyle of North Americans. Great work! And I look forward to seeing your work navigate initiatives for sustainable development.
I love my pool!! But if I didn’t…
The main issue that creates these decaying suburbs is money. Water isn’t a large portion of a houses budget. So if you save me $70/mth because I get my water locally, can you save me from being foreclosed on? The avg. US household spends $180/mth, if this cuts it in half (which would be fantastic) it’s still not much in view of a total house budget.
However, I really like this idea as a sustainable water treatment model. But I don’t see how it will help families keep their homes and prevent suburban decay—the main focus of this competition.
Interesting idea … is this only for mild climates or will it work year round in an area that has cold winters ?
Maybe i missed this but just one question comes to mind what if i want to go for a swim in the swimming pool? i really like it beyond that one nagging question.
Considering that these pools can be a liability for property owners, what with the cost of cleaning and maintaining them, and hurting their homes resale value, this is one alternative to filling them in. I could imagine this being most effective in a parts of the American Southwest.. in poorly imagined suburbs that have progressively less and less groundwater to draw upon, and more competition for it. Cool idea.
Sorry, I also have to ask steve’s question. Since the whole reason one would get a swimming pool is simply for it to be a swimming pool. The whole system looks pretty good and I’d support it though.
Thanks for all the interest! In answer to the issues above:
Katherine: I’ve been developing a neighbourhood plan, but unfortunately I felt it wasn’t ready for submission at the time of deadline.
Dave: My approach to the competition was not to solve the disastrous financial crisis, but to suggest a method to begin re-inhabiting these places with a sustainable agenda. puRE being the beginning stages of a much larger sustainable network.
William: I’ve shown the system for a warm climate, but it can be adapted to a cold climate as well. It would require an enveloping structure though.
Steve & Guy: Sorry, but the pool would no longer be for swimming. My stance is that suburbia requires a drastic overhaul in systems, density, zoning etc. The proposal begins to broach the argument that current suburban lifestyle is an excessive waste of resources and land, a private swimming pool being the epitome of suburban luxury & waste(in my opinion – next to lawns of course). I actually had to reign in my vision to keep it focused on one aspect that would begin to foster change within suburban areas towards a sustainable lifestyle. This obviously is a contentious issue as it begins to blur the lines between public & private as puRE is utilizing a private element for semi-public/communal use. This is not to say that people should not be compensated in some form for the use of their land/property, just that our notions of land ownership needs re-evaluation.
A nice solution, but I dont see a lot of people giving up their pools. I do see people adding this or building it into a new project.
I hope it catches on…very good.
you’d be surprised how many people are giving up their pools, especially for insurance reasons mentioned by Rowan. the building i live in recently closed down its pool for this reason, and canvassed the people living here for options on what to do with the space instead.
we decided on a patio and garden space, but having more “ready to go” options like this one would be useful.
Craig, you’re a madman.
Kind of reminds me of Barbarella and ‘Tasting the essence of man’. The storage tower wants to be a hookah pipe. Got my vote!
It’s worthwhile to applaud this design’s attempt to break down the suburban notions of what is ‘private’ and what could be ’shared’. Socially, I think this scheme is the most effective initiative to shake up the most troubling issue of the suburb – a sense of neighborhood + community! Just as one of the images illustrates, in an area where there are several homes with pools, sure, one neighbor’s pool will be used for the puRE while those benefiting from the system could volunteer their pools around it. This makes for new opportunities to grow a sense of responsibility and green consciousness within a neighborhood while getting to know the person behind the fence next door. Great work!
So.. we’re going to send guys with guns to tell people who own pools they will now become waste treatment plants. And i assume all of us rich taxpayers will be happy to pay for million dollar microtreatment plants in their pools. Oh and of course.. eat the food grown with human waste. I assume we’ll be doing that right after we tell every property owner in the suburbs that the state is simmply taking their land.. and we cant afford books for our kids but heres money for the land we’re going to confiscated, sell to developers who will then send your property value through the basement.
Yet another problem with these competitions. Everyone assumes we live in a benigh dictatorship. And a morally pure one at that. Thing is if we lived in that Brave New World.. we wouldnt have these problems. We’d have much much deadlier ones instead.
Interesting idea, but from a community point of view, swimming pools are one of the few great things that bring people together in the suburbs. Who doesn’t love the neighbor with the pool?
I have to agree on the cost benefit analysis. For the cost of a microplant for every five houses, you could BUY several houses and create a community septic/runoff reclimation area. Any wastewater treatment, particularly if it is treating to the point of human use (not just sterilized and released into the environment, as most wastewater plants do), requires constant monitoring, quality control, and some technical skills.
While I applaud taking the toxic chemical pool and naturalizing it, I think you would do better to just naturalize them. Most pools only need modification to use existing circulation systems to function as biologically stable ecosystems. Add in a sloped edge, and it becomes a natural pond and removes all liability issues (depending on where you like, the level and extent of grade necesseary to no longer need a fence or be a liability will be different).
I know when I do it (albeit, I’m not trying to make a living doing these – so material cost only, no labor), it cost me about $200 to take a pool and turn it into a fishtank (for raising trout or tilapia – still requires liability fence) and about $2,500 to convert one to an open (no fence – slope sided) pond. The best part is, you can still swim in them (if fish don’t freak you out) and they are still much cleaner than the local lake.
Especially a good idea with a retractible pool enclosure that would allow all year round swimming.
Swimming for life.Really transforming swimming pool into water treatment plants is really a great idea.