Abstract: Against the backdrop of the rapid development of cities in China, children are confronted with problems such as the lack of public Spaces and the homogenization of community activity venues. Among them, old communities are the most important part of the construction of child-friendly cities. The modern Li Fen community in Wuhan is the product of the exchange between Western architectural culture and the regional culture of Wuhan. It carries a large amount of urban historical and cultural information of Wuhan and is an important part of the city's unique charm. This paper selects the modern Lifen Community in Wuhan City as the localization research object. Through the quantitative analysis of the survey results of children and parents in the Lifen community, it points out the problems existing in the current building space of old communities, and obtains practical and feasible strategies and implementation approaches for the renewal of building space in old communities, with the aim of providing new ideas and inspirations for the renewal of old communities from the perspective of children. Key words: Child-friendly neighborhood, old community, architectural space, old city renewal

The concept of "Child-Friendly City" (CFC for short) was proposed by UNICEF and UN-Habitat at the resolution of the second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements in 1996. This initiative takes children's well-being and quality of life as the ultimate goal of urban sustainable development, construction and management. By improving children's living environment, it aims to fulfill their physical, psychological, cognitive, social and economic needs and rights. At present, more than 3,000 cities and communities in over 40 countries around the world are involved, while there is still no participation in China. [1] In our research and attention to community design, we subconsciously regard adults as the main objects of behavioral space in community design. The needs of vulnerable groups such as children are often overlooked, and their participation in urban planning and architectural design is even scarcer. Although some cities advocate building "child-friendly cities", they have not yet fully implemented this in actual construction [2].

In January 2020, Wuhan's "14th Five-Year Plan" proposed to actively create a child-friendly city. In view of this, this paper attempts to take the Li Fen buildings in Wuhan as an example. Based on the framework of integrating the renovation of community public Spaces and interior Spaces of buildings, and with investigation and research as the foundation, it provides goals and directions for the renewal of old communities in the context of child-friendly cities.

1 Research Design

1.1 Analysis of the Current Situation of Children's Population in Wuhan City

As of 2019, the number of registered children aged 0 to 18 in Wuhan had reached 1.478 million, accounting for 16.7% of the city's total population. This proportion was higher than 12.1% in Shanghai (registered population) and close to 18.9% in Shenzhen (permanent resident population) [3]. It can be seen from this that the base number of children in our city is large and is generally showing a continuous growth trend. With the continuous increase in the number of children, the demand for children's activity Spaces has gradually become prominent, and the physical and psychological needs of children of different age groups for activity Spaces vary greatly. Child development psychology indicates that children's development has phased characteristics: children under the age of six are preschool children, which is a critical period for personality formation, but they have insufficient awareness of activity risks. Children aged 6 to 14 are the most active in outdoor space activities. However, children under the age of three have relatively weak activity abilities. Therefore, this article focuses on children aged 3 to 14 as the main research group and conducts an overall and differentiated transformation of their activity Spaces.

1.2 Analysis of the Current Situation of Old Communities in Wuhan City

Old communities are not only an important part of the old city, but also the basic units of social governance and significant carriers of people's livelihood security. Based on factors such as historical culture and geographical location, one of the development focuses of Wuhan still lies in the old urban areas along the river. However, in the old communities of Wuhan, due to their long history, backward infrastructure and complex surrounding business types, there are very few outdoor activity Spaces for children. Not only that, a large number of houses in old communities have problems such as peeling walls, cracked walls, aging facilities, dampness on the ground floor, and roof leakage, which greatly affect children's quality of life and their sense of environmental identity.

1.3 Research Significance and Value of the Sub-communities in Wuhan City

Lifen Community in Wuhan is a typical example of the old communities in Wuhan. The construction of the modern branch buildings in Wuhan began at the end of the 19th century. After more than a hundred years, the modern branch buildings in Wuhan that still exist today still have extremely rich inheritance value. The Lifen community is dotted with numerous museum clusters, historical and cultural blocks, and historical streets and alleys. It boasts a natural ecological environment and historical and cultural space carriers, which have certain educational significance for children in their growth period. In view of this, this paper selects representative modern outstanding neighborhood communities in Hankou such as Kunhouli, Hanrunli, and Jianghan Village in the Nanjing Road and Dazhi Road area as the main research areas (Figure 1). The community under investigation has unclear property rights and lagging hardware due to historical and geographical reasons. All these have restricted children's activity space. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out child-friendly renovations in the Li Branch community, make full use of the location resources and tap their development potential.

1.4 Questionnaire Survey Design

Based on a pre-survey, this study conducted a detailed questionnaire survey (8 major items, 267 sub-items, Table 1) among children aged 3 to 14 in Lifen Community and combined it with home visits to collect relevant data for statistical analysis. Among them, 2% of the total number of children aged 3 to 14 was taken as the sample size (less than 50 were counted as 50). A total of 289 questionnaires were distributed, 267 were retrieved, and 248 were valid. All questionnaires passed the reliability and validity tests and had statistical significance and practical value.

2. Data research and analysis

2.1 Overall Factor Analysis

(1) Analysis of Children's Willingness to Reside and Related Overall Factors: Children's settlement in Lifen is a prerequisite for child-friendly transformation. All child-friendly transformations are centered around children's continued residence and life in the Lifen community. Therefore, centering on children's willingness to live, an analysis of relevant factors reveals that the proportion of children willing to continue living in Li Fen exceeds 50% (54.7%). Most of the street-facing sections of Lifen Community have been transformed into shops. The alleys have become places for residents to dry their clothes and exhaust smoke and sewage. The originally narrow streets have been occupied by small vendors... The complex living environment is hard to meet the basic needs of children's activities, which is where the necessity of child-friendly transformation lies. Table 1 shows the design and urgency of the questionnaire question stem.

One-way analysis of variance was applied to the ordered numerical variables (age, living area) in the survey data, and K independent sample tests were conducted on the nominal variables (respondents' gender, current living status) in a non-parametric manner. The following conclusions were drawn: There are significant differences in children's living intentions with respondents' age and living area, but no significant differences with respondents' gender. Observation of the correlation reveals that among all factors, there is a significant and strong correlation between the willingness to live and the living area. However, there is a weak correlation with age (Table 2). To further study the specific differences between children's willingness to live and various factors, examine the results of multiple comparisons, and comprehensively investigate the correlation of related factors in combination with the mean.

The influence of age on children's willingness to live. As children grow older and their living time increases, their willingness to live in the Li Branch community becomes more positive. From the analysis of the data (Figure 2), it is known that children's attachment to the neighborhood increases sharply after the age of 12. According to the research interviews, it can be known that children of this age group have lived for a longer time, are more familiar with the architectural environment of the residential area, and have a stronger sense of attachment. However, there is a slight downward trend in the 9 to 11 age group. Children in this age group are more active, showing a contradiction and confusion between their current living conditions and their desire for reform. This is a key age group to pay attention to.

② The influence of living area on children's willingness to live. Children's willingness to live increases as the living area expands. There are significant differences between the two extremes of children's willingness to live (very willing and unwilling) in terms of different living areas, which indicates that an appropriate living area is one of the prerequisites for ensuring children's living conditions.

Further analysis reveals that the growth rate of the 70 to 90 square meters residential area section has slowed down, and it is determined that this area is a key target for renovation. In addition, most of the residences in Lifen Community are old and the living areas are generally small. Only 4.5% of them are larger than 120 square meters, and the willingness to live there is generally strong. Therefore, this area range is not within the scope of renovation considerations.

In conclusion, the child-friendly renovation of Lifen Community should focus on considering the influence of age and living area among the overall factors. Children's willingness to live has a very weak or no correlation with other overall factors such as gender, parents' occupations, and the floor of residence (Kendall's correlation coefficient Tau_b is all less than 0.1), and its influence on the outcome is not considered.

(2) Analysis of internal environmental factors in the community: The aspects involved in children's willingness to live are far more than the overall descriptive factors such as age, gender, parents' occupations, living area, and living floor. In fact, it also involves related details such as living environment and educational facilities. One-way analysis of variance was applied to ordered numerical variables (residential environment, community environment, educational facilities, activity venues, medical care, shopping environment, community services, and surrounding entertainment facilities), and the following conclusion was drawn: The higher the overall satisfaction of children with the internal environment of the community, the stronger their willingness to live there. Among them, there is a moderate-intensity correlation with the community environment, residential environment and educational supporting conditions (0.3 < tau_b < 0.5), which is determined as a key renovation indicator. There is a weak correlation with the surrounding entertainment, activity venues, medical care, commercial shopping environment and community services (0.1 < tau_b < 0.3), and targeted renovation design should also be carried out.

2.2 Analysis of Satisfaction with Key Factors and Degree of Transformation

To further examine the specific differences in children's satisfaction under the relevant factors within the community, the following will conduct an in-depth analysis of each constituent element of the child-friendly transformation of Lifen Community from the aspects of community environment, living environment and activity venues. The degree of transformation ① is based on satisfaction and combines the importance of transformation factors to calculate the relevant data of residents' demands for child-friendly transformation.

Analysis of Community Environmental Satisfaction and Renovation Degree
The community environment is one of the key factors for a child-friendly community. The quality of the community environment affects children's identification with the community and their tendency to live there. This is because, apart from the living environment, the most convenient environment for children to interact with the outside world is the internal environment of the community, and most of their activities take place outdoors. Moreover, as it is a public area, child-friendly renovations are easier to implement and have immediate effects. One-way ANOVA on various indicators of the community environment revealed that children have lower satisfaction with the appearance of buildings, travel traffic, environmental hygiene and lighting environment. This is because the community is old, with poor transportation, sanitation and hardware facilities, and children prefer vibrant and colorful personalized Spaces. Further analysis reveals that environmental hygiene, travel traffic and lighting environment have a relatively high degree of renovation and are important factors in the renovation process. Most of the interviewed children think that it is inconvenient to go to and from school, the streets are quite crowded and it is not easy to park at the school gate. Therefore, optimizing the layout around schools is also one of the considerations.

(2) Analysis of Satisfaction and Renovation Degree of Activity Venues Eight typical Spaces were listed in the community activity venues (Figure 5). One-way ANOVA was conducted on them, and it was found that the average satisfaction of the open Spaces between groups, the open Spaces in front of shops, the areas around parking lots, and sports venues was relatively low, making it difficult to meet the basic activity needs of children. Based on the analysis of the four basic types of children's activities: walking, conversation and interaction, games and entertainment, and parent-child interaction, it can be known that in the renovation, the primary consideration should be to ensure that each space meets the needs of games and entertainment activities. From a single factor analysis, the demand for parent-child activities in the open space in front of the store is the highest. Children tend to be more active in the neighborhood after school, so personalized design should be carried out.

(3) Analysis of Satisfaction and Renovation Degree of the Living Environment The living environment is the basic place for children to carry out daily life and living. One-way analysis of variance on various indicators of the living environment shows that the average satisfaction of dining space and study space is relatively low, and the ventilation, lighting and privacy of the residence are poor. This is a common problem in old residences. Based on the analysis of the degree of renovation, it can be known that the privacy of the residence is the most concerned issue for children in the living environment. Secondly, some of the old residences in the Li Branch community have not separately arranged the dining room and study in their functional layout, but have mixed them with other functions, resulting in low satisfaction among children. Appropriate adjustments and optimizations should be made in the subsequent design. In addition, 56.4% of the surveyed children live with the elderly. The elderly and children have similar levels of dependence on others and limited activities, but their physical and psychological states are quite different. During the renovation, the needs of these two extreme age groups should be taken into consideration simultaneously.

Suggestions for child-friendly update strategies

3.1 Overall Renovation Direction Analysis

(1) Adhere to the principle of child-friendliness: The prerequisite for building a child-friendly community in a multi-functional dynamic space is to enhance children's participation, plan and design from children's perspective, and fully consider the physical and psychological needs of children of different ages and genders. Traditionally, the construction standards for child-friendly communities include four aspects: accessibility, comfort, multi-functionality and safety of open Spaces. However, in reality, children's needs go beyond these. For instance, children of different age groups have different demands for space. Preschool children have limited activity abilities and tend to prefer safe, interesting and simple Spaces. School-age children, on the other hand, have a more diverse range of activities and tend to prefer larger venues with more complete facilities and a certain degree of challenge. Therefore, in response to the common problems and prominent links identified from the mathematical analysis above, a comprehensive consideration should be made based on the priority order of the goals to create a multi-functional and dynamic space that promotes the individual development of children.

(2) Creating a city card for Old Hankou: A Shared Space for the Elderly and Children. Wuhan Lifen Community is not only a place for citizens to live, but also its rich historical and cultural resources have brought a strong cultural atmosphere to the community. In 2016, Zhongshan Avenue was renovated and transformed into a cultural tourism avenue that "recreates historical features and highlights Hankou's characteristics". Many old houses have been restored to their original state, showcasing the new charm of Jiangcheng's historical and cultural heritage, allowing children in the Li Branch community to live in a rich cultural atmosphere firsthand. As for the current situation, the aging problem in Lifen Community, Wuhan, is severe, and it is common for the elderly and children to live together. Therefore, in light of the local historical and cultural background, the common and individualized needs of the elderly and children should be comprehensively considered to enhance the utilization rate of space and create a shared space for the elderly and children with the "characteristics of Old Hankou".

3.2 Targeted update strategy

The Lifen community in Wuhan generally suffers from poor living conditions, numerous land restrictions, and unauthorized construction. In addition, the contradiction between the residents' willingness to relocate and the disadvantages of land development has made the prospects for demolition rather unclear. Therefore, all these have brought considerable resistance to child-friendly renovations and real estate development. However, the Lifen Community is home to a large number of outstanding historical buildings from modern times, most of which are protected cultural relics. These buildings have high architectural art and cultural value, and they are all organic components of the urban texture, memory and emotion. In view of this, the overall child-friendly transformation direction of such communities is positioned as the following three points.

The first is resource integration, introducing real estate and intermediary funds for overall renovation and leasing to address the predicament of unclear property rights and unsatisfactory development value.

Second, in terms of shaping spatial quality, provide public Spaces that allow people to return to nature and release their true selves. Build a safe walking environment and interesting street Spaces; Create a vibrant and friendly community interaction space; Realize adequate, diverse, affordable and friendly public service facilities for children.

Third, make full use of the geographical advantages and surrounding educational resources. Take functional replacement and revitalization as the breakthrough point for child-friendly transformation, and renovate or build small-scale children's training institutions and cultural and sports buildings. And through overall renovation and package rental, the living environment is greatly improved in terms of hardware.

3.3 Demonstration Sample Renovation Design

(1) A demonstration sample for the renovation of living environment: Focusing on the modern Li branch community in Wuhan, taking the outstanding Li branch Tongxingli 14# in Hankou as evidence, a demonstration sample for the child-friendly renovation of living environment is proposed.

Maintain the original building structure and increase the floor area. The original building in Tongxingli has a floor height of 4.5 meters. The original two floors can be changed to three floors, and the floor height will be increased to 3 meters.

② The floor plan retains two bays. The front atrium on the first floor serves as the entrance hall, creating a transitional space between the inside and outside. The rear atrium is retained to optimize the lighting and ventilation conditions of the rooms.

③ Add barrier-free facilities for disabled children and the elderly, transform them into open kitchens, and increase the dining space. By making reasonable adjustments to the original floor plan, updating water, electricity and heating equipment, optimizing usage functions and beautifying the living environment.

The second and third floor units offer two different renovation models. The second floor consists of two two-bedroom units, while the third floor reduces the area of three units. Each unit does not have a separate kitchen, and a large public activity space is formed in the atrium, which not only provides privacy but also promotes communication among multiple generations.

(2) Demonstration samples of educational facility renovation: Based on the two-room residences of the modern excellent Li Fen Kun Hou Li as evidence, they were functionally replaced and transformed into small and micro educational bases, and demonstration samples of child-friendly renovation of educational facilities were extracted. ① Renovation guidance strategy: Based on the geographical and location advantages of Lifen Community, explore its architectural features, and transform the existing old community buildings into small and micro education bases. This not only addresses the urgent need for children to receive nearby training and significantly reduces commuting time, but also greatly enhances the convenience of educational facilities in urban old communities by radiating to surrounding communities. ② Specific renovation steps: After the first floor is decorated, the corresponding functions will be replaced. On the second floor, some interior walls will be removed to meet the functional requirements of the classroom space (Figure 8).

(3) Demonstration samples for community environment renovation take into account the diverse activity needs of children and propose renovation design samples for the six major activity space types in the urban fringe area of Lifen Community (Figure 9).

① Renovation guidance strategy: On the basis of the existing roads, repair the road surface, eliminate large height differences, add recreational facilities, etc., and optimize and adjust the community's recreational and gathering Spaces.

② Specific renovation steps: First, add brightly colored guiding signs to help children recognize directions; Second, rectify the road texture, optimize the landscape layout, and enrich the three-dimensional layers of plants. Third, implement the separation of pedestrians and vehicles. At the main entrances of residential areas and on roads with heavy traffic, separate the sidewalks from the vehicle lanes with guardrails. Set up bollards at road nodes where children are frequently active. Motor vehicles are restricted by time periods to ensure the safety of children's travel without affecting traffic. Fourth, enhance lighting design by integrating more lights into the design of squares, courtyards, sculptures, and small artworks, which can make their expressiveness at night more abundant and reduce the risk of safety accidents.

Conclusion

The construction of child-friendly communities is a positive attempt to meet the needs of children in modern society. As children belong to a special group, the target group of child-friendly space design also includes adults, especially the elderly and those with mobility difficulties. In the context of taking children's rights into account as one of the design subjects, the vulnerable groups in old communities cannot be ignored. Giving fairness and care to vulnerable groups such as children in the renewal of architectural space can not only solve many social conflicts, but also is the inevitable way to maximize the utilization of space. In the future, the development of cities in our country should accelerate the process of building child-friendly cities, deepen the connotation of "urban dual repair", start from the renewal of old communities to improve the environmental quality of children's activities, guide children to participate widely, and jointly create a social environment that is both vibrant and harmonious and orderly.

The source of the data: All the charts and graphs in the article are either self-drawn or self-photographed by the author.

Note ① The degree of transformation = spatial non-satisfaction (convenience) × importance coefficient, that is: the more unsatisfactory (less convenient) and more important a factor is, the higher the degree of transformation. Among them, spatial non-satisfaction =6- behavioral satisfaction; The importance coefficient is determined according to the corresponding importance degree in the research questionnaire. To more accurately reflect relativity, it is assumed that when the importance is average, the coefficient is 1; when the importance = very unimportant, the coefficient is 0.5; when the importance = very important, the coefficient is 2. According to the geometric sequence calculation, it can be obtained that when the importance is 1,2,3,4,5, when. The importance coefficients correspond to 0.5, 0.7,1.0,1.4, and 2.0. It is assumed that when the satisfaction level is average and the importance level is also average, the corresponding value 3 is the critical value for the ideal state transformation.

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