Guangzhou Community Child Outdoor Games Place Environment Design Research

The outdoor children's playground plays an important part in the healthy development of childhood. Judging from the current situation of Chinese children's playground area, the outdoor playground equipments for children are taken into account in the urban community by the construction law. However, they are a bit simplified and patternized. On the other hand, not enough attention are paid to the quality of children's playground equipments in parks and kindergartens. Especially there are many problems lies in the environmental design of the outdoor playground equipments for children.This thesis consists of six parts to make the investigation for further study. Part One and Part Two focus on literature review of the development of the outdoor playground equipments for children. It emphasizes the function of the environment by analyzing the influence of physical and space environment while playing outdoors.Part Three mainly focuses on the basic principles, and characteristics in the environmental design of outdoor playground equipments for children, which belongs to a study on basic theory. The environmental design of outdoor playground equipments for children is following the principles of humanization, ecology, free access, security and geographical regions. The fundamental elements can be summarized as the following three points: spatial elements, visual elements and composing elements. Spatial elements are not only about the game equipments but also about the spatial area of the playground, including the location, boundary, entrance and center, etc. Visual elements are about that the outdoor playground should be designed according to children's visual psychology: morphology, say, tactile appeal, and colors. Composing elements refer to the man made equipments and natural objects. From the point of the humanization, it also about the street furniture and its supporting facilities, say, locker and lounge area. With the guidance of these principles and elements, this part discusses the characteristic features of environmental design for outdoor playground equipments for children in Guangzhou City.Part Four is mainly about the case study on current situation. The author makes an investigation in the current situation of environmental design of outdoor playground equipments for children in Guangzhou urban community by observation, interview and questionnaire. This thesis gives relative evaluation on the current outdoors environment, type, characteristics and problems existed of outdoor playground for children by data analyzing.Part Five probes into the ways and means of environmental design of outdoor playground for children and provides some cases and feasibility study.Part Six is an extension of the thesis. It makes some suggestions for improvement in existed condition according to the current environmental elements and equipments of the outdoor playground for children.