public pools

Lifeguard Shortage Stalls Pool Openings
Among the many challenges facing the pool industry, a shortage of lifeguards is keeping thousands of public pools across the country from opening. One possible solution may be to look to senior citizens as a possible source to fill the gap. After all, being a lifeguard is not restricted to the young. ...
Essential Inner-City Pools
Los Angeles has opened two community pools that officials and local citizens hope will bring the joy, health and safety of swimming to a community that for too long has not had a place to cool off and swim a few laps. ...
Making the Public Leap
It happens all the time. Professionals who start their careers in a residential setting will at some point venture into the world of public water. When they attempt to make the leap, they encounter a whole new working environment that will either
Hurtful Impulses
The stories I've seen hurt my heart. There was the one about the woman who accosted a teenage boy who'd been invited to swim in a neighborhood pool, telling him to get out or she'd call
Swimming’s Lessons
One of my strongest (and best) childhood memories is of the first time I managed to swim the full length of an Olympic-size swimming pool. Another of my strongest (and saddest) youthful recollections is of the first time I tried swimming that distance - and failed miserably: I started out well but found myself desperately
Resonance
Is watershaping well served by the way things are going?   My roundabout discussion of this question, its origins and implications has occupied several of my blogs through the past half year and more.  I've enjoyed this process of stepping back and taking a long view of
The Big Aquatic Picture
I've written a couple of my recent blogs about public pools, access to them, their cost, their status and my growing concern that, for a complex of reasons, swimming skills and our basic societal inclination to be water-involved is slowly moving onto the cultural version of the endangered species list. It's in this context that I call your attention to
2016/1.2, January 20 — Planting a Watergarden, Working Small, Lessons Learned and more
THE ESSENTIAL E-NEWSLETTER FOR WATERSHAPE DESIGNERS, ENGINEERS AND BUILDERS January 20, 2016 www.watershapes.com FEATURE ARTICLE…
The Way-Back Machine
A couple weeks ago in this space, I raised a few questions about public swimming pools and their current tendency toward becoming utterly grand, infinitely varied, impressively expensive mega-facilities.  I also hearkened back to watershaping on the level of the places in which I'd learned to swim - pools where I gained the strength and skill required to
2015/9.2, September 23 — Overflowing Consequences, Heater Talk, Small-Site Potential and more
THE ESSENTIAL E-NEWSLETTER FOR WATERSHAPE DESIGNERS, ENGINEERS AND BUILDERS September 23, 2015 www.watershapes.com FEATURE ARTICLE…