住宅一直是现当代建筑学关注的核心议题之一。勒·柯布西耶称集合住宅为城市的“实质”；阿尔多·罗西将城市的构筑物分为两大类：除了少数几座独立“纪念碑”外，其余大片是城市“肌理”，主要由集合住宅构成。
Housing is always one of the core topics of modern and contemporary architecture. Le Corbusier considered it the "substance" of the city. Housing and monuments are defined by Aldo Rossi as the two main permanences in the city: "monuments" are primary elements which are persistent and distinguished from housing, the other primary element shaping the "fabric" of the city.
集合住宅设计的重大成就，往往构成建筑学发展的重要节点。二十世纪一系列集合住宅展，成为现当代建筑史的里程碑。1920年代德国斯图加特的魏森霍夫住宅展（Weißenhofsiedlung），向世人清晰展示：现代建筑正在成长为一场影响全人类生活的“运动”；1980年代德国柏林的IBA国际建筑展（International Building Exhibition），有力推动了后现代城市与建筑思潮在后冷战时代的广泛传播；1990年代由矶崎新邀请当时国际一流建筑师共同建设的日本福冈香椎集合住宅（Nexus World Housing），借日本经济腾飞的动力，推动了世界建筑的密切交流；千禧年后德国汉堡的IBA国际建筑展，则明确提出低廉、环保、智能等命题，十分契合当下时代精神。与此同时，广义上建筑文化发展强劲的区域，往往也是集合住宅设计创新集中迸发的地方，比如战后重建中的欧洲和日本，以及摆脱殖民统治、自主发展的南美和印度。
The major achievements in housing design constitute important nodes in the history of architecture. A series of housing exhibitions and development in the twentieth century have become milestones of modern and contemporary architectural history. In the 1920s, the Weissenhof Estate (Weißenhofsiedlung) in Stuttgart, Germany showed clearly to the world that: Modern architecture is growing into a "movement" affecting the lives of all human beings. In 1980s, the IBA (International Building Exhibition) in Berlin, Germany strongly promoted the spread of post-modern urbanism and architectural trends in the post-Cold War era. In the 1990s, Arata Isozaki invited world-leading architects of the time to build the Nexus World Housing in Fukuoka, Japan. Leveraging the power of Japan's economic boom, it contributed to close communication of architecture across the world. After the millennium, the IBA in Hamburg, Germany put forward the topics of low-cost, environmentally friendly and intelligent housing, reflecting the spirit of the times. Meanwhile, in a broad sense, areas with strong architectural culture development are often the places where housing design innovations burst out, for example, Europe and Japan both under post-war reconstruction, and South America and India, which became independent from colonial rules.
毋庸赘言，除了建筑文化氛围外，国家住房政策更是决定性因素，尤其对公共集合住宅的设计有根本影响。为什么在北欧和新加坡，公共集合住宅的创新总是层出不穷？这显然归功于这些国家的高福利居住政策，政府对公共集合住宅作为产品和文化的双重重视、对公共集合住宅设计创新的尊重和鼓励，等等。
Needless to say, except for the architectural cultural environment, the national housing policy is a decisive factor, which has a fundamental impact on public housing design. Why do innovations in public housing emerge in Northern Europe and Singapore? High welfare policies in residence, the government's attention to public housing which is considered a product as well as culture, respect and encouragement for design innovations in housing, etc. are the reasons.
在经历住房市场化、商品化三十余年的快速发展后，今天，由政府开发、供应的公共住房作为平衡住房市场、促进社会公平的干预手段，正在重新成为中国住房改革的热点与探索方向。一批优秀的公共集合住宅案例，在北京、上海和江浙等地陆续建成，它们集中反映了城市的社会性问题与居住设计问题，并向世人证明：公共集合住宅，在保证数量、指标和成本控制的基础上，仍可以实现卓越的空间品质和类型创新。
After more than 30 years of rapid development in the marketization and commercialization of housing, today, public housing developed and supplied by the government, as the means to balance the housing market and promote social equity, is becoming a focus and direction of exploration in China's housing reform again. A number of excellent public housing cases have been built in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, etc. They reflected the urban social issues and residential design problems, and had proved to the world that: excellent spatial quality and innovation on typology can be achieved in public housing even on the basis of satisfying quantity, restrict indices and cost limitation.
在此背景下，南方新住宅：深圳南山建工村公共住房设计公开竞赛，正式启动。欢迎全球优秀设计团队参与。
In this context, Reinventing Housing in the South: Competition for Public Housing Design of Jiangong Community in Shenzhen Nanshan is now officially launched. Design teams all around the world are welcome to participate.
