Evaluation of Child-Friendly Public Spaces and Safety Enhancement Recommendations for Liuyun Community in Guangzhou

With the adjustment of the domestic birth policy, the number of children will significantly increase, which will in turn affect the social needs of urban space. Community public space, as the main outdoor activity space for children, is an important open space type for their healthy growth, and child-friendliness is an important aspect of space design. This article focuses on community public space, based on child-friendly environmental standards and practical experience, and attempts to construct a set of localized and operable child-friendly community public space evaluation system. It is applied to the evaluation of the child-friendliness and safety optimization of the public space in Guangzhou's Liuyun community, in order to refine and summarize more targeted community public space optimization strategies. Firstly, the progress of domestic and international research on child-friendly theories is outlined, and the characteristics of children's physical and mental development and their demands for public space at different stages are summarized. The latest child-friendly space construction guidelines in various countries are reviewed, and five major construction dimensions of community public space from a child-friendly perspective are summarized, including space construction, path construction, activity operation, institutional policies, and neighborhood culture. Six influencing indicators of child-friendliness in community public space are also summarized: diversity, acc essibility, safety, comfort, naturalness, and participation.Secondly, based on relevant case studies of child-friendly community public space construction around the world. Based on theoretical and case studies, combined with the actual situation of specific blocks in Liuyun community, the AHP analysis method was used to construct a system for evaluating the child-friendliness of community public spaces. The evaluation system uses the six influencing indicators summarized in previous articles as evaluation criteria, and selects evaluation factors based on the actual situation of Liuyun community and user evaluations. Finally, a three-level evaluation index system consisting of 6 evaluation criteria and 24 evaluation factors for the child-friendliness of public spaces in Liuyun community was constructed. Based on the evaluation system, data and information were obtained through on-site research and questionnaire interviews on public spaces in Liuyun community, and its child-friendliness index was calculated to be 2.5035, indicating a general friendly status, with poor performance in terms of space safety, participation, and diversity. At the same time, the primary issues related to improving child-friendliness of different types of public spaces and streets in the community were identified. Based on the scoring rate and the score of influencing factors, a design principle that prioritizes safety while considering diversity, accessibility, nature, comfort, and participation was proposed. According to this principle and with reference to excellent cases, corresponding strategies were proposed from five construction dimensions to form a toolbox for optimizing and improving the child-friendliness of public spaces in the community based on the evaluation criteria. Taking the renovation and design of child-friendly public spaces in Liuyun community in Guangzhou as an example, the child-friendliness of public spaces in Liuyun community was improved from overall spaces to detailed nodes of various types.