Jardí Botànic de Barcelona
plants to be exhibited and as information stops
along the way.
Regarding the choice of materials for the paths,
some options were considered. The consultant
botanist preferred soft paving, such as gravel or
coarse sand, but these were not advisable because
of the erosion risk and the likely cost of mainte-
nance. Before works stared in 1997 the secondary
paths were to be paved with asphalt with railway-
sleeper edges. However, this proposal would have
caused problems during construction, because of
the difficulty of using the appropriate machinery on
such steep slopes, sometimes up to 30 per cent,
and in the pouring and spreading of the asphalt
along such narrow paths. The project team changed
the design of the secondary paths, constructing
them of in-situ concrete, widening them and provi-
ding them with drainage channels.Concrete is a relatively cheap material, easy to
work with, flexible enough to adapt to complicated
topography and it needs little maintenance. JBB
was an ambitious project with a limited budget, the-7.15
Desert Square: the point at which some of the driest
phytoepisodes, from Chile, South Africa, California
and Australia, come together
7.16
Standard path cross-section. Main and secondary
paths differ only in width. The irrigation system fol-
lows the paths