Colonia Caroya: riuso architettonico e gastronomia come vettori rigenerativi della città

Colonia Caroya, a rural settlement located in the Cordoba countryside of Argentina, presents a peculiar urban fabric, characterised by unexpressed potential and widespread urban criticalities. This contribution aims to show and highlight how an urban regeneration strategy based on a territorial acupuncture approach can, employing a system of targeted micro- and macro-scale interventions, reactivate critical areas and enhance local identity. In this context, the proposal of a university of gastronomic sciences is configured as a catalysing device of new cultural, economic and social synergies, in dialogue with the specificities of the territory. The architecture of the new university centre is grafted onto the city's historic social winery, an emblem of the collective memory of Italian immigrants, of Friulian cultural origin, who have shaped the local landscape over the years. The synergy between the academic institution and wine production becomes the fulcrum of the regenerative process, reconfiguring the area as a socio-cultural infrastructure and urban market: a hybrid public space where architecture is an agent of spatial and social resilience, fostering knowledge exchange, community engagement, and the reinterpretation of heritage as a driver for sustainable urban development.