1000 year-old swimming pool: Welcome to Angkor Wat!

I have been fascinated with this place ever since I was a kid. I saw it for the first time in a old Sinbad movie on TV and I was blown away. This ancient city was once overtaken by jungle, completely shrouded and hidden, what little left that was exposed to the world was summarily looted by western tomb raiders. That all changed when Cambodia took control of it as a national asset and restored it. Some of the artwork looted has been returned.

More evidence that swimming is not just an art or science but rather a lifestyle and has been for the past 1000 years.

A site called OOBject.com did all the due diligence in finding his sublime work of engineering. [Link]

Cool Pool Artwork

I found Robert Vogland's work on Drawn.ca. The Finding Nemo characters were commissioned by the President of Pixar, Dr. Ed Catmull’s, for his very own pool. Here is a link to all of the Finding Nemo pool characters: [Link]

From Europe, a No-Chlorine Backyard Pool

The New York Times has an article about self-cleaning pools for the backyard that use no chlorine. Invented in Europe these pools meet strict EU water quality standards. From the article:

• The pools have skimmers and pumps that circulate the water through the regeneration zone and draw it across a wall of rocks, loose gravel or tiles, to which friendly bacteria attach, serving as an additional biological filter. Unlike artificial ponds, which tend to be as murky with groundwater runoff and sediment from soil erosion as the natural ponds they’re modeled on, in a natural pool the water is clear enough to see through to the bottom. [Link]