One of the recent applications was designed by PLAYLAB, INC. and Family New York in collaboration with Floating Point. The new lighting project termed +POOL concept makes it possible for anyone to infer water conditions in New York City’s harbor by visualising it. This amazing feat has been achieved by a light installation and an interactive website.
The 50-foot x 50-foot plus-shaped “+PooL Light” is installed at the Seaport District at Lower Manhattan’s Pier 17, continuously changing colour based on the condition of the water in which it floats, from great for swimming to not-so-great. The installation was launched recently and is expected to continue till January 2020.
The installation consists of an LED sculpture that glows teal when pathogens show up in the water but predictive Enterococci levels are safe for swimming (below 35 CFU) and pink when levels reach unsafe swimming levels. The sculpture’s lights also change direction based on the flow of the current. The light’s brightness, frequency, and sharpness reflect oxygen, turbidity, and pH.
The data you can see when you look at the sculpture is also sent to an online public dashboard, developed in partnership with Reaktor that explains the science behind the changing lights and tracks water quality metrics that might affect a swimmer’s experience, such as temperature, turbidity, and salinity.
