Research On Urban Open Space For Children

Children are the future of mankind.As the psychology of children development indicates, it is because the body and mind of a child is the most plastic that the childhood has the greatest influence on a person’s lifetime. The quality of the living environment poses a huge impact on children’s growth.At the present, several issues should be concerned. For example, what is the relationship between the children’s demand and the urban open space like plaza, street, or park? What about urban designers or planners’concern on children’s outdoor living environment in the city? Do the design and planning of the urban open space consider the children’s development?Based on the research, several issues were addressed hoping to apply the theory of the psychology of children development to the design of urban open space. First, what’s the significance and value of studying the urban open space on children’s development? Do children think that the urban open space meets their demands? What’s the current situation and shortages of the existing urban open space related to children’s needs? What aspects should be focused on when designing the child-friendly urban open space? These issues were analyzed in the following sections.In the first section, the origin of the project, research subject and relevant concepts were introduced. And therefore, five basic research issues were put forward. The research methods, objective and structure were also discussed in this section.In the second section, the psychology of children development and the theory of urban open space were analyzed and the relationship between these two was explained.In the third section, children’s impression, attitude and expectation on their outdoor playground in the urban open space was understood after doing the questionnaire survey. Then, children’s psychology towards activity in different environment was explored based on the survey analysis.In the fourth section, after doing on-site investigation on the existing urban open space in Changsha. their characteristics and existing problems correlating with children’s development were identified. Furthermore, the relevant design theories were discussed after studying the international cases.In the last section, the design guidelines were provided to create a child-friendly urban open space from the perspectives of public consciousness and policy guarantee, children’s urban activity system construction and architecture and landscape design.The objective of the study is to not only provide academic values for architects, planners and city managers, but also make the contribution to the development of children, who are carrying "culture genes" with both historical code originals and future development tendency.