Objective With the construction of child-friendly cities officially written into China’s “14th Five-Year Plan”, as an important part of the implementation of the child-friendly concept, how to create child-friendly spatial environments suitable for children’s activities in communities has become a question that needs to be answered urgently in community planning and construction. Therefore, this research aims to take three pilot child-friendly communities in Chengdu as examples, to explore the practice of community space construction, and to propose strategies for renewing and constructing a community space environment suitable for children’s outdoor activities.

Methods This research takes the four types of activity spaces of square, green space, facility space, and street space in the three pilot child-friendly communities in Chengdu as research objects. Methods such as the System for observing play and recreation in communities (SOPARC) and the kernel density estimation (KDE) are adopted to investigate the current status of community activity space, and the characteristics of the community space environment and children’s outdoor activities are collected. Based on relevant data and existing research, a total of twelve specific factors are used to quantify the characteristics of the community space environment from the six dimensions of safety, nature, fun, comfort, accessibility, and scale. Three indicators, namely density of children’s activities, average duration of children’s activities, and diversity index of children’s activity types, are used to analyze children’s activities quantitatively, and a correlation analysis model is established to explore the community space environment factors affecting children’s outdoor activities.

Results By analyzing the correlation between children’s outdoor activities and community space environment factors, it is found that multiple environmental factors have an impact on children’s activities, such as monitoring space, paving surfacing flatness, combination of natural elements and space, types of play facilities, spatial richness, rest facilities, accessibility of commercial facilities, and site scale. Among them, monitoring space, types of play facilities, rest facilities, and accessibility of commercial facilities are the key environmental indicators that affect the density, duration, and diversity of children’s outdoor activities, and significantly impact on children’s activities. In addition, paving surfacing flatness is also positively correlated with the density and duration of children’s activities, and the combination of natural elements and space has positively impact on the density of children’s activities and the diversity of activity types. Based on the quantitative analysis results of this research and considering the actual situation of community activity space construction, future key directions for creating community space environments that promote children’s outdoor activities can be summarized in four areas. 1) Reasonable planning and allocation of large-scale spaces with flat surfacing near children’s commercial areas. Both the accessibility of commercial facilities and site scale have a positive impact on children’s activities, with the former being a key environmental indicator affecting children’s activities, while the latter determining the number of activity facilities and space elements that the space can contain and accommodating a variety of key environmental factors that significantly affect children’s activities. So special attention needs to be paid to site scale in the construction of community space environment. Therefore, communities should prioritize the creation of large-scale, open, and flat-surfaced areas to provide ample opportunities for children’s play. 2) Addition of attractive and well-designed supporting facilities. Rest facilities and the types of play facilities are key environmental indicators that significantly impact children’s outdoor activities. Appropriate play facilities can be added according to different types of spaces. Meanwhile, rest facilities should also be designed with consideration of children’s psychological and behavioral habits, and they should be thoughtfully placed within activity space. 3) Creation of reasonable monitoring and rest spaces. There is a significant positive association between rest facilities and monitoring space with children’s activities. Community space for children’s activities should also take into account the needs of parents’ monitoring and resting needs while considering the needs of children’s activities. Ideally, monitoring and rest areas should be strategically placed around the activity site to offer a wider field of vision, making it easier to observe children’s outdoor activities. 4) Incorporation of novel, diverse, and interactive environmental elements. Spaces that excel in terms of the combination of natural elements and space and spatial richness are more appealing to children. Community planning should incorporate new, diverse, and interactive environmental elements to provide children with more opportunities for independent exploration and creativity, such as plants, sand, water, wood, and other natural elements.

Conclusion These findings may provide a scientific foundation for designing community spaces that support children’s outdoor activities. Furthermore, the proposed renewal strategies, based on these analyses, can assist communities in creating a healthy and welcoming environment for children to thrive in.