Hungary-based design team Urban Landscape Group recently completed an extraordinary summer project that allows visitors to float down the Danube in a portable pool! Dubbed Barge Beach Budapest, the sandy sailing island acts as a contemporary Turkish bath and open air pool situated in the waterways between the river’s edges. The pop up beach is constructed from three recycled barges and provides residents with a brand new public space to bask in the sun.
Barge Beach Budapest is composed of a wooden deck that sits atop three recycled barges that at one time carried shipments of coal and stone up and down the river. The 2,100 square-meter platform comes complete with a 16-meter pool surrounded by lounge chairs, outdoor showers, a café and bar, as well as sand pits and a paddling pool for kids.
The migrating recreational pier was designed by Barbara Szöllőssy and Zsolt Pyka of Urban Landscape Group to be a place where citizen’s could enjoy public pool facilities while connecting with their surrounding environment. According to the designers, “Mayor Gabor Demszky has praised the project as “a solution to the ‘decades old’ problem of Budapest citizens being cut off from the Danube by the two busy highways that run along its embankments.”
+ Urban Landscape Group
