Masterplan for La Farga de Bebié
La Farga de Bebié is an industrial estate founded by the Swiss businessman Edmundo Bebiè, who gave the residential architecture here a notably “Swiss” air whilst applying industrial construction criteria ahead of its time.
La Farga de Bebié is one amongst many industrial estates established along the River Ter in the 19th century, which obtained permits to generate the hydraulic power they needed to drive their factories.
Today, the residential and production facilities at La Farga de Bebiè have become old and deteriorated, and only minimal activity continues.
The Masterplan is a conceptual instrument that defines the main guidelines for rehabilitating the complex.
The first stage in the masterplan stresses the value of the landscape in and around the estate and the need to conserve the geographic unity of a site that occupies both banks of the River Ter. The plan identifies the heritage that should be conserved and improved, considers corrective measures for areas liable to become flooded and proposes the rehabilitation of the industrial and residential estate.
La Farga de Bebiè straddles municipalities: Les Lloses and Montesquiu. The masterplan aims to integrate the newly rehabilitated estate into the territory as an independent urban community.
At the conceptual level, specific proposals are formulated to put the factories to new uses and to rehabilitate the old facilities: the theatre, the nursery school, the infirmary, etc. Moreover, proposals are also put forward for the rehabilitation of existing residential facilities. New housing is planned with a view to generating the necessary critical mass required for a community of this type to function successfully today, with predominance of social housing. Moreover, social, health, educational and cultural facilities are provided in accordance with the size of the urban structure.
The plan also proposes ways of regenerating the landscape in and around the estate and rehabilitating the bed of the River Ter along the stretch occupied by this former industrial complex.