Construction of a Children-Friendly Landscape Environment With Functions of Psychological Treatment and Physical Rehabilitation

Abstract

The landscape environment is critical to the development of children. The importance of children-friendly landscape environment has been highlighted in relevant literature. This paper explores deep into the construction of a children-friendly landscape environment. The construction strategy was discussed from multiple perspectives, such as landscape policy, landscape planning, landscape design, and landscape technology and facilities. Besides, key indices of landscape environment were analyzed under each perspective. It is concluded that, in addition to basic aesthetic and ecological functions, a good landscape environment should have functions like psychological treatment and physical rehabilitation, i.e. be friendly to children with psychological and physical problems.

Child-Friendly Environments—What, How and by Whom?

“…From this plethora of factors, the core values of the concept can be drawn out as indicators for CFE across the sociophysical spectrum. These core factors can be seen as having a definitive importance for CFE, and were independently elevated in individual papers, including: access to green space and local environment [7,43,[45][46][47][48], prerequisites for independent mobility [16,35,[49][50][51], the opportunity to actualize affordances [17,40,[52][53][54][55], children's participation [33,[56][57][58], inclusive environments [26,59,60], and safety [45,[61][62][63][64][65]. On some occasions, papers list the initial frameworks as indicators, such as the UNCRC three Ps [66,67] and an integration of CFCI perspectives [68].…”

“…For CFE to be better for several age groups requires an often-mentioned variety [33,45,53,59,64,85], which extends to different types of child-friendly spaces. Moreover, the requested qualities in green spaces often include variation as a quality in its own right [33,46,53].…”

“…Moreover, the requested qualities in green spaces often include variation as a quality in its own right [33,46,53]. This can be seen in qualities from a mixture of open and closed spaces [46], cover both highly designed and maintained playgrounds with smooth slopes and surfaces [52] and age-appropriate size and design [62,64,69,81], adapted to all variations of ability [44,72], to informal and unprogrammed areas [24,45,59,60] that are green, natural or wild [13,14,45,50]. The qualities needed in different types of spaces may also depend on the context; while some studies advocate for the elimination of architectural barriers more generally [53,56], others frame a selective reduction or application around specific types of spaces [27,44] where, for example, entry gates and fences can be used as a feature for controlling access (as connected to theme of access) [28].…”

“…82%) of the papers. This often means access to green and open spaces [7,33,34,45,47,53,54,56,64,68,69,81,82,88,89], including to specific (service) facilities [35,84], or to the green spaces in a city or neighborhood [47,68,74,75,82], or a combination of the two [48]. The quality of access may also refer to the distribution of green spaces and facilities [64,74] or may be summarized as a network of play spaces [30].…”

“…Some factors in the physical environment can be deemed safe, meaning that a place is free from danger [81]. Many such elements are addressed in relation to CFE, ranging from safe drinking water [66], safe water depth [64], safe materials [69], and achieving safety using lighting [82], to more broadly mentioning environmental cleanliness [64] (detailed in the theme clean environment), safe places [37,63,76], and, more specifically, the finding that designated spaces can support safety [63]. Providing these safe environments for children can then enhance both their activity and mobility [8], and this overlaps with the theme of play and leisure.…”