Written in Partnership with Poralu Marine: Leisure and Living Areas on the Water
May 28, 2024
Address land shortages and make your community more appealing
There is a very clear push these days to build more homes, create more density and spur gentrification. Much of this development and infilling is happening in areas previously underutilized when it comes to integration of living spaces and people; waterfronts. Waterfronts that were formerly industrial in nature or, in some instances, of a geographic profile that it is difficult for developers, planners and municipalities to access the water and waterfront for the purposes of meaningful use.
This notion of infilling with higher densities and better land use is in turn, in many waterfront locations creating an unforeseen challenge as we build closer and closer to the water to increase density, and then run out of land inventory on which to create the living and social spaces that connect people with the very waterfront that is so valuable.
Using the water as living and social space
After years of building boardwalks and bridges to connect people to spaces near the water, Poralu Marine has recently launched a complete line of products, designs, and considerations to use the actual water as the living, social space. Drawing on an internationally based experience where docking design is meant to integrate boating, living, social and retail spaces (and not simply ‘boat parking’ marinas), the concept to use less navigable areas for living space, allowing people to interact on the water, is at the heart of this expanding enterprise.
Aptly coined, WA-DE, which stands for Waterfront Development and is the delivery of creative on-water social spaces to assist with communities being backfilled with more and more housing. WA-DE has also been tasked recently with creating floating recreational space in the form of a pool to augment living spaces in our Nation’s Capital. While the concept is not entirely new, as we have seen with social platforms in Penetanguishine and other municipalities, the consideration of providing landscaped areas, shade trees, sitting areas, services, restrooms and the like, on the water, is certainly a step in the direction to improve upon access and making these areas livable, enjoyable and a fully integrated part of your waterfront community.
Poralu Marine has long been an innovator when it comes to how we interact with water; how we moor on it; how we clean debris from it; how we protect it; how we access it, and now Poralu is looking to make sure we can find ways to connect to water, even if it isn’t by a personal boat. We all seem to have a never-ending romance with the water, the lakes and the seas. The more we can do to use them well, the better, because with all the waterfront planning and development that is happening, it is imperative that we retain our connection to the water both as land lovers and as a boating community.
For more information and ideas, email: contact@poralu.com or visit https://www.poralu.com/en/amenagement-du-territoire-sur-leau/
