Plus Pool Light by PLAYLAB with Family New York and Floating Point

Photo © Brett Beyer

Though swimming in the East River may not be on every New Yorker's bucket list, PLAYLAB, in collaboration with Family New York and Floating Point, has created a 50-foot by 50-foot buoyant cross-shaped beacon from LEDs as "a way to illuminate—pun intended—the issues surrounding water quality in the East River," says Archie Lee Coates IV, cofounder and partner of the New York–based firm. The temporary installation's lights change colors according to aspects of water quality as it relates to swimmer experience, like temperature, clarity, and salinity. (There is also a website with more detailed real-time data and a legend for each color correspondence.) The floating light sculpture serves as a precursor to + POOL, an initiative started by the firms in 2010 to one day bring a public, self-filtering swimming pool to the same location. + POOL Light will be on view at Manhattan's Pier 17 through January 3, 2020.

Kara Mavros is a former associate editor at Architectural Record.