Life

This Sky Pool In Houston Is So Full Of NOPE

by Lara Rutherford-Morrison

File this one under “You Either Love It or You Hate It”: Video of a “sky pool” in Houston is going viral, and with good reason— it’ll make you say, “YAS please!” or “No. NO. Absolutely NOT. NOPE x 1,000.” (I’m paraphrasing.) This plexiglass bottomed pool suspends swimmers 500 feet above the streets of Houston, and it raises important questions about the course of human civilization: Is this sky pool a feat of modern engineering, proof of human’s mastery of the laws of nature? Or is this thing an affront to everything sacred and good, an act of hubris for which we will surely be struck down (or at least pitched over the side of the pool)? To be honest, I am firmly in the “POOLS ARE NOT MEANT TO FLY” category.

This horrifying death aquarium… I mean… sky pool… belongs to Market Square Tower, a luxury apartment building in downtown Houston. The Houston Chronicle reports that the pool juts 10 feet over the edge of the building, suspended 40 stories (about 500 feet) above the ground. Eight-inch-thick plexiglass stands between swimmers and the streets below. As video of the pool in use shows, the pool's clear sides and clear bottom give swimmers the sensation of floating high in the air, with nothing between them and the sky. Whether that’s a good sensation or a bloodcurdling one depends entirely on the swimmer.

Just watch:

This video fills me with a deep horror.

Seriously, this is me right now:

Notice that the body of water above has a FLOOR.

(This isn’t the only extreme swimming pool out there. For more pool-induced vertigo, checkout this high-flying glass floating pool set to be built between two buildings in London.)

Sky pools 500 feet up don’t come cheap. According to the Houston Chronicle, a studio in this building goes for $1,805 per month, while a nearly-3,000-square-foot penthouse runs a cool $18,715. Thankfully, for people who want to swim without feeling overwhelmed by their insignificance in a vast universe, there’s another (non-floating) pool on the fourth floor.