Building the future of floating living spaces: this is the idea behind the new offering from Poralu Marine. The worldwide leader in the design, construction and installation of aluminum marinas, Poralu Marine is continuing to diversify its products and services with the launch of a new waterfront development business unit that is revolutionizing communities’ urban development projects, with the aim of achieving €50 million in turnover in 5 years.
Innovative, patented solutions designed to meet the challenges faced by communities
Poralu Marine’s new business unit responds to the clearly identified challenges that communities face, including land shortages and rising water levels. An innovative solution to these environmental and economic issues, waterfront development revolutionizes long-term urban development projects at a time when climate change risks further exacerbating the existing lack of space. According to scientists from the NGO Climate Change, 15% of the world’s population will be impacted by rising sea levels. For example, affected cities will include London, Nice, St-Petersburg, Hanoï or Vancouver. Faced with this climate challenge, Poralu Marine offers an approach that opens up an innovative range of possibilities. Its goal is to create new floating living spaces in the heart of cities: projects that develop the local area while also protecting it, and that take a sustainable approach to urban development.
For this new business unit, Poralu Marine has announced €1 million of R&D investment over 3 years. This investment is focused in particular on research into new materials that better protect the environment, with biosourced claddings or coatings made using oyster shell, for example.
Poralu Marine has also developed a floating modular assembly system, which is currently being patented. With its unique geometry, it guarantees an incomparable level of strength and modularity thanks to its bolted aluminum platforms. All of Poralu Marine’s installations are scalable, modular, fully removable and even recyclable. They offer an infinite number of possible configurations!
All installations meet the EN14504 standard, which pertains to floating landing stages and floating bridges. This is the most stringent standard for floating components designed to accommodate people. As a result, it has a load capacity of 500kg/m², excellent stability (almost giving the impression of being on land), and a high freeboard (almost 1m). All of this combines to offer an excellent level of safety to all users, including people with limited mobility. What’s more, these developments are certified to EXC3, the maximum execution class under the EN1090 standard, which determines the quality and control class for metal structures.
“With the creation of this new business unit, our goal is no longer to only target harbor managers, but to focus our development on urban areas and communities located on inland waters. Our aim is to assist areas with the implementation of innovative concepts that are fully tailored to their needs. We create true living spaces that are dedicated to individuals’ well-being and leisure, designed with the city of the future in mind. We are targeting the French market but also the international market, with initial opportunities in Canada, the United States and Europe,” explains Quentin Bresson, business unit manager.
A comprehensive development offering to create the future of floating living spaces
Poralu Marine offers a wide-ranging, comprehensive approach with a package of solutions for developing floating public spaces. The Group’s offering is divided into three business lines: promenades over water, leisure areas on the water, and floating buildings. These solutions are aimed at urban developers, architects and all communities and cities with inland bodies of water (rivers, lakes and ponds). All of these are new target markets for Poralu Marine, which has previously specialized in coastal developments.
Promenades offer new spaces for soft mobility and sporting activities – creating places where walkers can enjoy a stroll over the water in a protected environment. Promenades can be built on riverbanks (existing or not) or on water as fixed or floating installations. Poralu Marine has just finished installing two projects of this type located within nature reserves in Canada: Oka Parc and Ile Bizard.
The Ile Bizard project in particular sets the standard for environmentally friendly development projects, as it has been created in total harmony with its ecosystem: the design features high-end materials, the guardrails have been designed with birds in mind and there are even spaces between the floats to allow beavers to pass through unimpeded. Other projects have also helped to showcase the heritage of the local area.
In addition, Poralu Marine offers the ability to create leisure areas on the water in urban areas by developing waterfronts. These include innovative projects that take a new approach to public spaces: gardens, play parks, sports fields, pools, cooling spaces – the possibilities are endless. These developments allow local governments to find new spaces on which to build these facilities, while also reducing costs. These spaces have zero property cost and can be made available almost immediately.
Finally, through this new business unit, Poralu Marine also offers design and construction services for floating buildings: housing, offices, student or seasonal accommodation, neighborhood stores, and bars and restaurants. “The aim of our new waterfront development business unit is to take water into consideration as part of a comprehensive approach. Our goal is to design and produce floating ecodistricts. We offer a multitude of solutions on the city neighborhood scale. We’re the only stakeholder capable of integrating three types of waterfront development projects,” adds Quentin Bresson.
Connecting land and water: almost 40 years of expertise from Poralu Marine
Marine and coastal spaces and inland waters are historically the areas in which Poralu Marine has worked, with almost 40 years of experience. Through its activities all over the world, the Group has for many years been aware of the direct impact of human beings on marine, harbor and lakeside spaces. With its internationally recognized expertise, Poralu Marine uses its ability to innovate in order to benefit projects designed to enable people to live in harmony with their ecosystems. Designed and manufactured in Port (01) in France, the Group’s installations use recycled, recyclable or biosourced materials wherever possible to ensure the best fit with the environment. Poralu Marine is particularly recognized as an expert in using aluminum, which offers a number of key qualities: it is corrosion-free, light, and infinitely recyclable.