Water To The People / People To The Water Workshop
Pool is Cool + Dallas
Patio Museo de La Rioja – Concéntrico 08
First step 2022 – Bringing the water to the people
Pool is Cool and Collectif Dallas will therefore implement a movable workshop in the City of Logroño, possibly (but not necessarily) focussed on the area around the Ebro river. The workshop will be at the same time a place of meeting as well as an experiential space; a place to experience and play with water, a place to discuss the role of water for the city of Logroño – the river Ebro, the former river swimming pool and the pleasure boats, public and private pools, the use of water in the city during heat waves in summer and the heavy floods in winter, water fountains and retention basins, … It will be crucial that people will physically get in contact with water, by some means or others, in order to break the fine border between land and water, dry and wet, and to establish a personal relation with the questions that are discussed.
We consider the moment of the festival as a laboratory to gather information, evaluate assertions, build a network and simply learn about Logroño through activation, playing and meetings.
The workshop will take place in the museum and in various locations, exploring diverse places and audiences that will lead to the Pool is Cool and Dallas in 2023 intervention.
Pool is Cool + Dallas
POOL IS COOL, a non-profit organisation and think-and-do-tank based in Brussels, strives for the re-introduction of outdoor swimming in the European capital.
Unlike most major European cities, Brussels has no outdoor swimming facilities. Besides being a sports activity, outdoor swimming also promotes social interaction and provides much needed contact with the environment. As such, it has a strong impact on a city’s overall quality of life. While there were swimming places in Brussels up until the late 70s, including large open air swimming pools, they all eventually disappeared. Along with them a lively outdoor swimming culture was lost.
POOL IS COOL strives to revive the outdoor swimming culture of Brussels through the re-introduction of open air swimming places accessible to everyone. To create places for swimming, we see opportunities both in existing waters and new constructions. These can be places which are already publicly accessible today or will be in the future. However, it is important to bear in mind that a single pool will not be enough. A city of the size and diversity of Brussels needs and deserves multiple swimming opportunities. In order to put outdoor swimming on the public agenda and to encourage political initiatives, POOL IS COOL organizes actions in public space, realizes projects like temporary swimming places, does contextual research to gather and develop elementary knowledge, and stimulates societal debates to gain public support. To reach that goal we believe in sharing a decidedly positive message and in proactively answering questions that will be asked in future processes.
After first informal encounters in 2014, POOL IS COOL was established as an organisation in 2016. It’s an open collective of citizen experts with backgrounds in urbanism, architecture, psychology and a broad range of different socio-cultural contexts. For all its projects POOL IS COOL strongly relies on partnerships with other organisations for their specific expertise.
DALLAS is an architectural collective born in June 2018 from the meeting of four young architect-builders. We work on projects of various natures and scales – ephemeral or perennial, objects, installations or spaces – questioning the uses, practices and perceptions of space, the city, materials… At a time of over-specialization, we are aiming more for a general practice, enhancing making and action; a practice between design and construction, between architecture, art and crafts. dallas is for us a field of experimentation, a round trip between knowledge and doing.
With the collaboration of
