pools

Damn, Donald, Back At It Again With the Gross Pools

The president of the United States may be an infamous germophobe, but he is also an infamous cheapskate whose business ventures regularly attract the attention of health authorities. The latter of these two impulses appears to have won out by far with respect to pools at his resorts in Florida, which Quartz reported on Monday…

Scientists Have a Sneaky Way of Telling If You Peed in the Pool

Pools are giant toilets. Around one in five Americans admit to having peed in a swimming pools at least once. Every pool probably contains a shot glass full of urine per swimmer, according to a story by Chemical and Engineering News from last year. The people around you might not know you peed. But thanks…

This Dude Really Can’t Stop Making Ridiculous Jumps Off Buildings Into Pools

Day or night, off roofs or balconies, into pools or harbors, hell, even after getting arrested for trespassing (as he was no doubt, attempting a jump somewhere), 8booth is still making wild and reckless jumps off buildings and into pools to scare absolutely everyone watching. This time, he fled to Mexico to make two different…

Spend the Rest of the Summer Floating Around on a Giant Cockroach

If you woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night yesterday, panicked that there wasn’t enough time left this summer to float around on a giant six-feet long inflatable cockroach, do not worry. There is still plenty of time to disgust everyone at the beach or local your pool with this…

The Real Reason You Shouldn’t Pee In the Pool 

Peeing in the public pool is gross, immature, but basically harmless, right? A quick fix when you’ve really gotta go? Not exactly. In advance of the its annual summer meeting, the American Chemical Society has just released a video explaining, in gory scientific detail, why peeing in the pool makes it a more unhealthy environment…

Either Some Idiot Made a Mistake or the Future Is Finally Here

Well, it definitely beats the hell out of a standing desk. Contact the author at [email protected].

Want to Save Water? Build a Pool, Says the Pool Industry

Sure, you’re already doing a lot to save water—plucking the almonds from your granola each morning and shaming your grass-owning neighbors daily on Twitter. But when will you get serious about the drought and install a pool? That’s the logic currently being promoted by a group of pool industry lobbyists who are claiming that pools…

Watching realistic CGI giraffes dive into a pool is pure ridiculous fun

This is completely absurd but Nicolas Deveaux’s 5 Mètres 80 is so fun that it doesn’t really matter. A group of giraffes raid a pool and start jumping off the high dive while doing tricks. It’s all CGI but the giraffes look so realistic that I can’t help but imagine the alternate reality that this…

The Navy Built Its Own Indoor Ocean to Test Ships

The world’s seven seas may be wildly unpredictable, but if you ever find yourself itching to play Poseidon, you might want to consider enlisting. Because at the Naval Surface Warfare Center just outside Washington, D.C., the Navy gets to control every inch of its very own indoor ocean. And now, thanks to 216 newly acquired…

You Can Swim In a Secret Pool in the Mojave Desert, If You Can Find It

When it’s hot, city dwellers begin to have a certain look of desperation: That single-minded determination to access the sweet summer relief of a pool. Well, here’s a public pool that’s completely free and available to use—provided you can locate the pool itself, which is somewhere in the middle of a 25,000 square-mile Southern California…

Crazy Humans Explain Why They Swim Outdoors in Below-Freezing Temps

There are some folks for whom stripping down to a Speedo in the dead of winter to hop into in a snow-lined outdoor pool sounds like a special kind of frozen-over hell. And then there is this dedicated gang of water-lovin’ types who will get their laps in at the London Fields Lido no matter…

Japanese architect Shigeru Ban is taking a very, uh, literal approach to his $23.5 million Mount Fuji World Heritage Center. The building’s wooden lattice is designed to look like the volcano’s inverse—reflecting its silhouette in pool that will surround the building when it’s finished in 2016. [DesignBoom]

Distract Yourself From Winter With the Most Amazing Pools on Earth

As winter tightens its cold, brittle fingers around our hearts one last time, Sploid has taken to meditating on incredible pools as a means of survival. Below, find some of the most luxurious, elegant, and downright outlandish designs around.

From the Playboy Mansion to YOLO Estate: The Lure of Backyard Grottos

Welcome to the YOLO Estate, the $7.7 million residence in L.A.’s Hidden Hills that was recently purchased by Drake. But it wasn’t necessarily the home itself that caught the eye of the rapper/songwriter/Degrassi alum, according to a recent interview with Rolling Stone. It was the grotto. A hundred feet from the patio, across his enormous…

Don’t You Wish You Were In One of These Beautiful Natural Pools?

You’d be crazy not to love stark, modern design like the stunning Tangga House, but the natural look can be beautiful too. Take these awesome man-made pond pools from Water House for example. You can’t tell me you don’t want to dive in right now. https://gizmodo.com/the-house-that-grew-from-solid-water-5602353 Each of these pools is very carefully placed as…

12 Cool Pools You Wish You Were Swimming In Now

It’s gone from warm and pleasant seersucker weather to hot as hell outside. It’s slogging through air so thick you need a machete and a shower every time you step outside hot. In times like these, you just want to laze in a pool. Specifically, in these positively perfect specimens. While you’re not picky, and…

This Submersible Skatepark Is Drainage in Disguise

Skateboarding’s earliest shredders cut their teeth in empty pools and drainage pipes, but extreme sport-boardin’ has come a long way in the years since. There are plenty of devoted skateparks out there now, but this one in Denmark goes back to those roots by doubling as a functional drainage system. Dreamt up by Danish design…

This Pool Hidden Among Plants Is Not a Mirage

Wouldn’t you rather be in this pool, right now, until your whole body transforms into a shriveled raisin? It’s not your winter-weary eyes playing tricks on you, it’s a succulent plant-covered leisure center in Amsterdam. The center is located in the middle of a park, so the architects—VenhoevenCS—built it to blend right in with its…

Is a Skinny Pool Better Than No Pool at All?

Ohhh! A skinny pool! Great for lap swimming. No, a personal body of water so small you can touch both edges at the same time is dumb. Or is it? Every so often you’ll see houses showcased on design blogs that are supposed to be remarkable for their slender pools, like this one on the…

iRobot’s Mirra 530 Gets More Power To Better Compete With Pool Boys

iRobot’s updated Mirra 530 pool-cleaning robot promises to make it even easier to tidy up your cement pond come summer. Designed to replace the company’s Verro 500 model, the Mirra features a set of large wheels instead of treads to better hug the ground and walls of a pool, as well as a more powerful…