Hi,

My last visit to Arromanches-les-Bains was special.

I went there with my parents, now both 84. For us, it was a trip down memory lane. They had taken me to Normandy many times during my childhood, and I in turn spent several summers in the region with a host family to learn French.

As a teenager, I was struck by the war stories—the courage, the sacrifice, the sheer scale of history.

Revisiting now, I noticed something different: it was the innovation behind Arromanches-les-Bains that captured my attention.

And here’s the contrast: what was once a lifeline of war is now, quite literally, a playground for children splashing in the waves.

A harbour designed to last a few months is still visible 80 years later.

Arromanches-les-Bains is the site of the famous Mulberry Harbour. In June 1944, the Allies built an artificial harbor—floating docks and roadways anchored in the sea—to unload thousands of tons of supplies.

The remarkable part?

It was designed for temporary use only.

The harbour only needed to last a few months until Cherbourg was secured. That constraint drove a completely different design approach—focused on speed and functionality rather than durability.

And yet, 80 years later, many of its structures are still visible today, silent witnesses of ingenuity under pressure.

The lessons it offers us today:

• Urgency as a driver: speed mattered more than perfection.
• Collaboration beyond comfort: nations, disciplines, and hierarchies worked side by side.
• Designing for temporary use: solutions don’t always need to last forever; they just need to last long enough to achieve their purpose.
• Imperfection embraced: some parts failed, others sank, but the whole system worked—and that made all the difference.

It’s a paradox worth reflecting on:

a harbour built for months is still here today, while many of our “permanent” projects crumble much faster.

Where in your projects are you still waiting for “perfect” instead of moving forward with “good enough”? Or, more personally: what’s a “temporary fix” in your life that turned out to last far longer than expected?

Reply with your thoughts—I’d love to hear them.

Warm regards,

Piet V.