A new floating dock was installed secretly in the Gorge waterway with the hopes of sparking a community conversation about rethinking the way we use the harbour.
After a 2018 trip to Copenhagen, Luke Mari, along with the two other owners of Aryze Development, felt something was missing when they returned home. The three friends were inspired by the working harbour, lined with people swimming on hot summer days.
— Talk to ARYZE (@TalktoARYZE) July 16, 2020
“It struck us that we have all the bones for this lifestyle but as a harbour city, the local citizenry is disconnected from harbour recreation,” reads the company’s website.
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Thus, Project Albero was born. The floating circular dock with a Japanese Katsura tree in the middle was built with the help of architects and engineers and was secretly pulled into the middle of the Gorge, near Banfield Park on July 15.
The first person to spot the dock was gifted a $100 coffee shop gift card. Beer from Phillips Brewery was left as a treat for the first person to swim to the dock and those who share photos of themselves out on the dock would be entered to win gift cards from Fernwood Pizza Company.
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The goal of Project Albero, which means “tree” in Italian, is to spark a community-driven conversation about “urban change” and get “people rethinking their city” and how they use the harbour, Mari explained. The dock, he said, is just phase one – Aryze plans to involve the community in further installations that are “more ambitious in scale.”
For more information on the project visit aryze.ca/project/the-floating-tree/.
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