Leafy roof

Gingko leaf roof at Jardins de la Villa Amèlia, Sarrià.

Parc del Laberint d'Horta

Last week I spent a sunny morning in the Parc del Laberint d'Horta named after its impressive cypress maze. Emitting a sense of abandonment, with its main building partly in ruins, and offering treats as the topiary garden, the romantic creek, the island of love, the camellia garden and the false cemetery it's a wonderful place to lose yourself.

Jardí Botànic de Barcelona

Yesterday I paid a visit to the Barcelona Botanical Garden located on the northwestern slopes of Montjuïc. The area, between the 1940s and 1970s home to a vast shantytown known as Can Valero and later the site of a landfill, is now a lush 14-hectare garden displaying a representative sample of flora from the areas of the world with a mediterranean climate, i.e. Australia, Chile, California, South Africa and The Mediterranean Basin.

The garden, designed by a team of architects, horticulturalists, biologists and landscape architect Bet Figueras, is covered by an unstructured grid of situ concrete paths adapted to the topography of the area creating organized spaces for the plant communities.

Opened in 1999, the Barcelona Botanical Garden has a very contemporary feel and the objectives to help preserve threatened plant species and raise public awareness about nature and the importance of biodiversity.

The winter being a period of rest for the aerial parts of the plants, I can't wait to come back in time for the spring rains.

Landschaftspark Duisberg-Nord

Image: Wikipedia (altered)

Today I read in the outdoor life magazine 365 about the Duisberg-Nord landscape park in the german Ruhr area which has been created around an old ironworks. Apparently you can climb a 70 m tall platform and dive in an old gasometer. If you want to. This whole place is a good example of incorporating the old into the new.

Oh, now I realize I've been to this site. On a field trip a long time ago. I thought I recognized that chimney!