Pre-announcement | Reinventing Housing in the South: Competition for Public Housing Design of Jiangong Community in Shenzhen Nanshan

The project is located in Nanshan District, Shenzhen. It will be built into a precedent that will be open, comfortable for living, and with humanity and Shenzhen’s city imprint. The competition is organized by the Bureau of Public Works of Nanshan District, Shenzhen, and co-organized by Position Architecture Co., Ltd, Shenzhen.

Competition Preface

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. Also, The other primary element shaping the “fabric” of the city.

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. Moreover, In the 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.

Needless to say, except for the architectural cultural environment, the national housing policy is a decisive factor. This 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 a product. And culture, respect, and encouragement for design innovations in housing, etc. are the reasons.

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. Several excellent public housing cases in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, etc. Moreover, They reflected the urban social issues and residential design problems and proved to the world that. Quality and innovation in typology can be achieved in public housing based on quantity, restrict indices, and cost limitation.

In this context, Reinventing Housing in the South. Competition for Public Housing Design of Jiangong Community in Shenzhen Nanshan will be launched soon.