Just add water…
We’ve built cities that forget.
Forget rivers.
Forget tides.
Forget that most of our bodies are water.
We design around roads.
Around retail.
Around return on investment.
But not around the nervous system.
Not around what makes us breathe slower.
Not around what makes us feel alive.
Water does that.
It always has.
I grew up on Cornish beaches.
Cold wind. Grey sky. Salt in your mouth.
My dad would paddle out first. I’d follow.
No science.
No strategy.
Just a feeling.
Something changed in me in the water.
Quieter. Clearer. Braver.
I didn’t have the language for it then.
Now we call it blue health.
But the name doesn’t matter.
The feeling does.
Years later, I build a surfpark in a field outside Bristol.
Concrete.
Planning meetings.
Spreadsheets.
Investors.
We raised £30m to bring the ocean inland.
People thought we were building a surf park.
We were not.
We were building access.
Access to something ancient.
Access to something the body understands before the brain does.
Here’s the truth.
Most cities have turned their backs on water.
Rivers buried.
Docks privatised.
Coastlines priced out.
Water became a view.
Or a luxury.
Or a holiday.
But biologically, emotionally, culturally - we are built for it.
Our stress drops near it.
Our conversations soften beside it.
Children play differently around it.
Communities form around it.
This isn’t romantic.
It’s observable.
So this blog is about one idea.
Just add water.
Not as decoration.
Not as branding.
As infrastructure.
As health policy.
As urban design.
As culture.
As a human need.
We’ll talk about surfing.
Where it came from. What it means. What it’s becoming.
We’ll talk about wave pools.
How you build them.
Why you should.
When you shouldn’t.
We’ll talk about blue health.
Stroke recovery.
Mental health.
The nervous system.
We’ll talk about cities.
What they’ve lost.
What they could regain.
Because reshaping how cities and people reconnect to water is not a niche idea.
It’s a design flaw correction.
This is not about going backwards.
It’s about remembering something we already know.
One body. One ocean.
We forgot.
Now we build differently.
Just add water.
And see what happens.
