Ben Bryant and the Pop-up Pool Project in Philadelphia
It’s summer, and who doesn’t like to hang out at the pool?
In most American cities, that used to mean heading down to the neighborhood pool where you found familiar faces and lots of strangers. In fact, prior to 1940, private swimming pools were almost exclusively the province of the extremely wealthy. In 1950, the U.S. had only 2,500 private, in-ground pools. But by 2009, there were 5.2 million private pools in the nation.
Ben Bryant is a self-professed fan of Philadelphia’s public pools, and he is determined to make them, once again, convivial places for people to hang out and enjoy the company of neighbors and friends. Ben, who is with Group Melvin Design, is a winner of this year’s Knight Cities Challenge with his Pop-up Pool Project.