MOTIVES AND EXCHANGE BETWEEN SOUTH AFRICA AND THE NETHERLANDS DURING its course, the Housing Generator project has been supported by various institutions in South Africa and The Netherlands. Of the many existing South African-Dutch initiatives, Housing Generator is unique in that it emphasizes the need for quality and spatial cohesion in residential areas. It aims to show that low cost housing is an important feature for the cities, and that different views on housing will entail different visions of the content, shape and dynamics of the city. Because they involve various ideas about society, only comprehensive approaches can lead to satisfactory solutions, in the sense that social housing is related to economic revitalization, that affordability and quality should be integral, that ecology and facilities are interconnected, and that results are dependent on participation by various kinds of people, including the communities. The Housing Generator is a proposal in which international ideas are exchanged, collaboration takes place, and where product and process are mutually important. THIS project has touched a critical part of the massive challenge of appropriate urban planning and the provision of public services and low income housing in South Africa, focusing on the selected project areas of Cato Manor in Durban, Duncan Village in East London and Wattville in Johannesburg. Two of these have been designated presidential projects, given their priority status in the vast challenge of urban restructuring and housing development in South Africa. THE Netherlands has a history of affordable housing and has created a housing system with a well-established organization, including housing corporations, governmental subsidy systems, competent and occasionally good urban schemes, involvement of high quality architects in social housing, a wide variety of prototypes, and a balance between public and private interests. This background may be a significant contribution to development in other countries and cultures, including South Africa. Sharing experiences and generating discussion with others in different parts of the globe may serve to evaluate, revitalize and renew Holland's own perception of urban and housing issues. TO some extent, housing expresses the state of civilization of a particular country. Obviously, housing is about the supply of houses, but at the same time it is about the housing policy and cultural view of a society. Today's urbanized world has to tackle the housing situation seriously and to learn to cope with enormous varieties of population in terms of ethnic differences, socio-economic strata, cultural differences and aspirations and access to the wealth of society. ANOTHER of this project's motives has been to instigate as well as form part of a larger South African-Dutch collaboration. In the last few years many Dutch cities have been significantly involved in developments in South Africa, and ties between Rotterdam and Durban, Leiden and East London, and The Hague and Wattville have been established. In some cases official sister city relationships have been set up. The mayor of Rotterdam, Bram Peper, recently signed a twinning protocol with Durban, in which the Housing Generator was one of the central projects. It seems that most architects and planners are not dealing with significant world problems such as housing and the emergence of informal developments around the world. The project challenges this practice. Through a competition such as this, these issues could become more vital components in contemporary architectural and urban debates. TODAY, after the colonial and apartheid eras of urban planning and architecture, educational institutions can emphasize the real issues of the cities of the South. It is fitting that in this new period, education should cultivate the appropriate skills and values for the new South African context. ONE of the main motives of the Housing Generator project has been to involve universities and technicians from South Africa and The Netherlands, to include the project in their curricula, and by doing so, to expose students to the real problems of South African cities instead of luxury First World assignments. The bilateral results form a basis for inspiration, debate and further exchange.