Research on Modularized Design of Urban Public Facilities Based on Interaction Concepts
Pubblicato online: 22 set 2025
Ricevuto: 02 feb 2025
Accettato: 06 mag 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/amns-2025-0957
Parole chiave
© 2025 Liang Wei, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Understanding from the perspective of public facilities, interactive design is to realize the good feedback of “people-facilities-environment”, and to realize convenient and easy urban functions in terms of communication experience and information transmission, so as to better serve the public [1–2]. On the one hand, the design of interactive public facilities follows the ergonomic norms, the overall form and function is more scientific, but also on the basis of improvement and adjustment, based on the flexible and rich functionality, there are also smooth lines and personalized modeling, more like a kind of installation art [3–5]. On the other hand, the design of interactive public facilities can allow people to experience in a wide space, release pressure, and better realize interaction. All these indicate that interactive public facilities design is worth our action, to carry out more in-depth research and analysis and theoretical practice [6–8].
From the current development situation in China, the rapid penetration and development of interaction design is obvious to all, but under the impetus of economic development and social progress, people have higher requirements for interaction, especially under the premise that the forms and functions of various products are increasing, how the realization of interaction affects the satisfaction of the audience [9–12]. Due to the late start of related applications and research, the desired effect has not yet been achieved, which must be recognized [13]. The interactive development of public facilities design is aimed at establishing the harmonious coexistence of people, environment and facilities, making the development of public facilities more scientific and humanized, winning with humanistic spirit and literary connotation, so that public facilities release a more unique light [14–16].
Literature [17] examined the interaction design of urban public facilities in various countries by using literature method and case study method, and based on a questionnaire survey to understand the public’s satisfaction with this public facility, it was concluded that the urban public facilities in the context of interaction design should focus on intelligence, humanization, and interactive information feedback. Based on the knowledge of interaction design, literature [18] investigated the customer’s satisfaction with the interaction design of urban public space, and analyzed the characteristics of interaction design and the application of spatial concepts in interaction design, and through experiments, it was concluded that the interaction design breaks the traditional design of urban space, and effectively improves the efficiency of the information transfer of interaction design. Literature [19] outlines the results of human-computer interaction design of public facilities in the environment. It points out that the integration of facilities and technology satisfies people’s emotional communication needs. It also emphasizes that the design of people and products should be planned in combination with the characteristics, color and form of the overall environment, which prompts them to satisfy the emotional concept and interaction design of environmental design and practicality. Literature [20] introduces the concept of public art design to design public facilities. By analyzing the use of public facilities by different groups, a humanized urban space is constructed, and a design scheme is proposed with public lighting facilities as an example. It is emphasized that public facility art design not only meets the needs of public activities, but also symbolizes the vitality of the city. Literature [21] compares the developed application with the results of similar work in other regions in order to explore the interaction design of public spaces. An intuitive interaction framework is used to analyze and derive a series of design solutions for the city. Literature [22] uses rooted theory to explore the characteristics, methods and effects of interaction in urban public cultural spaces. By creating an interactive planning method model of urban public cultural space, and a theoretical model constructed based on data collection and interviews. The analysis results show that the public cultural interaction design has certain strategic characteristics, methods and effects, and that this interaction design is now gradually becoming mature. Literature [23] based on the analysis of the current situation of intelligent public facilities research in various countries, combined with the needs of the elderly to elaborate the intelligent design principles of community public facilities in the context of aging, and put forward design solutions from various perspectives, which is of certain reference value to the intelligent development of public facilities. Literature [24] carried out the design practice of road smart street light and smart street light management platform by discussing the role of public facility art design in the construction of smart city, and the value of the change practice program is to improve the city image. And the smart lighting design scheme was analyzed from the aspects of color and function. Literature [25] introduces that interaction design has become an important component of service-oriented public facilities, and the user’s needs, practicality and ease of use should be taken into account in the design process, so as to provide a more humanized interaction experience. Literature [26] analyzed urban interaction scenarios and summarized interaction strategies for spatial optimization. It is argued that the interactive elements of urban space should have ecological elements and interactive technical elements. It reveals that a livable urban space is created by the interaction of interactivity, human behavior, emotions and senses.
Taking City A as the research object, this study classifies the public facilities contained in City A and grasps the use of public facilities in City A through a questionnaire survey, as a way to provide a precise direction for the subsequent modular design of urban public facilities based on the concept of interaction. Before the modular design, this paper adopts the fuzzy data comprehensive evaluation algorithm to analyze the weights of the influencing factors of urban public facilities and assess the design priorities. Based on the interaction concept, the modularized design system of mutual aid facilities for the elderly and children is constructed for the low satisfaction level of the elderly and children mutual aid system in A city. At the same time, the satisfaction of residents of City A with the function of the facility is investigated, and the influence of the modularized design on the functional composability of the facility is analyzed.
The public facilities described in this paper mainly refer to the equipment and items that serve the public in the modern urban environment in public places, and are summarized and summarized to classify the modern urban public facilities. Public transportation system Urban public transportation system can be divided into four subsystems: public transportation mode, public transportation facilities, public transportation planning and public transportation operation and management. This paper mainly focuses on the study of public transportation facilities, including traffic warnings, barricades, bus stops, parking lots, stations, toll booths, gas stations, bicycle parking points, police booths, pedestrian guardrails and so on. Public Health System The public health system described in this paper is not a large and complex professional medical institutions but the public health facilities closest to the lives of the people, including garbage cans, garbage rooms, garbage disposal stations, public toilets, hand-washing drinking fountains, spittoons and so on. Public Lighting System Urban public lighting system refers to the outdoor public places in the provision of lighting distribution facilities and ancillary equipment, including urban landscape lighting roads, squares, parking lots, overpass lighting, garden lighting, etc‥ Public Information System In addition to the intangible network media, the dissemination of information, tangible communication facilities closer to the lives of the public, such as public telephone booths, mailboxes and mailboxes, electronic information screens, guide signs, billboards, notice boards, etc., with the dissemination, identification, eye-catching and guiding characteristics. Public rest system Rest is one of the most common behaviors of people in public space, and the public rest system provides a comfortable possibility for people to rest. Public rest system refers to the places for relieving fatigue and providing short-term leisure and entertainment for pedestrians, including pedestrian street recreation area, park recreation corridor, rest area outside shopping malls and so on. Public Self-service System Public self-help system refers to the consumer through the self-service equipment can be hours of self-service, so as to meet the demand for a way of consumption. Various kinds of self-service systems, such as vending machines, ATMs, automatic computer network query machine, automatic ticket vending machines, automatic newspaper vending machines and so on. Public ornamental system Public ornamental system plays a decorative role in the urban landscape, it can be used as the main scenery to become the city’s iconic landscape, can also be used as a supporting scenery to play a beautifying role is to add interest to the city, beautify the living environment, increase the atmosphere of the festival, enrich the city’s cultural and artistic atmosphere of the main means, including landscape statues, ornamental flower beds, ornamental clocks and so on. Old and young mutual aid activity system In modern society, people pay more and more attention to the improvement of the quality of life of the elderly and children, and the old and young entertainment places gradually become an indispensable part of the city’s public facilities.
This section uses a questionnaire to investigate the status of public facilities’ perception in the life of A city, aiming to get the required information resources through the analysis of the questionnaire, which can provide a reliable basis for the design or optimization of public facilities.
The content of the survey is the public transportation system, public health system, public lighting system, public information system, public rest system, public self-help system, public ornamental system, and mutual-help activity system for the elderly and the young, a total of eight types of public facilities, which are recorded in order as facility numbers 1-8. 200 people in City A were randomly selected as the target respondents according to their gender and age. The questionnaire uses a Likert scale, that is, the awareness of urban public facilities is divided into five levels: “very knowing”, “understanding”, “general understanding”, “not knowing” and “very not knowing”, which correspond to the user score of 5-1 in turn.
Figure 1 shows the results of the survey on the awareness of public facilities in City A. The data in the figure shows that residents of City A have an average awareness of seven groups of public facilities, except for the mutual aid activity system for the elderly and the young, which is above 3, reaching the level of “general understanding”, while the awareness of the mutual aid activity system for the elderly and the young is 1.78, which is unaware of the system. This may be due to the lack of social concern for the integration of the elderly and children in the city, or the lack of clear policy guidance for the promotion of such a system in City A at present.
The results of the survey of the public facilities in A city
Fuzzy mathematical evaluation involves three factors: factor set, weight set, and evaluation set. Fuzzy evaluation through each factor set forms a single-factor evaluation set, establishes a single-factor fuzzy evaluation matrix, and carries out a multi-factor fuzzy comprehensive evaluation, and the specific process is as follows [27–28]. Fuzzy set determination Factor set U is a collection of factors or indicators of each factor or indicator that affects the evaluation object, which is expressed by the following formula:
Determination of the weight set According to the importance of each element in the factor set U in the evaluation of different weight values Establishment of evaluation set An evaluation set is a collection of evaluation results made on the subject of evaluation and is expressed by the following formula:
Single-factor fuzzy evaluation The evaluation object is evaluated according to the Fuzzy comprehensive evaluation After determining each evaluation factor set and obtaining the evaluation set single factor evaluation set, the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model can be completed, which can be calculated according to the principle of fuzzy mathematics and can be expressed by the following formula:
Comprehensive evaluation by mathematical model According to the mathematical model
Prior to the modular design of public facilities in City A, a questionnaire on the “weighting of the indicator system of factors influencing the modular design of mutual aid facilities for the elderly and children in City A” was prepared in this section. The questionnaire was then distributed to 10 experts for scoring. Through the collection of experts’ scoring sheets and relevant calculations, the index weights of the influencing factors related to the modular design of the old and young mutual aid facilities can be derived. The survey is mainly divided into four categories of primary indicators, namely, product performance, design, economy, and environmental protection, and the primary indicators contain a number of secondary indicators. Product performance includes mechanical, thermal, seismic and fire-resistant performance, as well as “environmental comfort” and “structural stability”. Design includes “group size and structure”, “ergonomic needs”, “adaptive design needs”, “spatial function types”, “spatial scale” and “component coordination”. The economic indicators are “transportation”, “hoisting construction”, “product assembly”, “secondary decoration” and “structure selection”. Environmental protection includes “resource reserve consumption”, “energy consumption”, “carbon emissions”, “construction waste production”, and “product reuse”. The weights of the influencing factors of the modular design of mutual aid facilities for the elderly and the young are shown in Figure 2.
The modular design influence factors are weighted
The different color bubbles in the figure represent the four first-level indicators, and the size of the bubbles represents the weight size of each indicator. The figure shows that based on the fuzzy synthesis algorithm, the weights of the secondary indicators are distributed between 0.0051 and 0.213, and the weights of the secondary indicators contained in each level of indicators are added up, and the weights of the primary indicators are arranged in ascending order as follows: design (0.6549), economy (0.1786), environment (0.1126), and product performance (0.0539), which shows that experts pay more attention to the influencing factors on design when modularizing the design of the facilities for the elderly and children. It can be seen that when carrying out the modular design of the facilities for the elderly and the young, the experts pay more attention to the influencing factors on the design.
Figure 3 shows the design content of the interaction concept. The interaction concept emphasizes the user-centered, from the user’s feelings, the user’s emotions, personality and other aspects of the investigation to create easy to use, in line with the user’s habits and can meet the user’s emotional experience needs of the product, so as to provide continuous feedback and improve to promote a good relationship between people and products a process [29]. Introducing the concept of interaction into urban public facilities, the subject of interaction is people, the age, personality, behavior of the crowd is analyzed to create a rich variety of public facilities, that is, interactive products. The information transmission, sensory and emotional experience stimulation to the crowd, the implicit value in public facilities will be transitioned to explicit value.
Interaction design content
Interactive public facilities are composed of three elements: people, public facility elements and interactive media:
People are the main body of the interactive public facilities and the users of the public facilities, which can be divided according to age, gender, literacy and so on. The elements of public facilities refer to the spatial and material forms that constitute public facilities, which can be divided into public information facilities, public health facilities, public cultural facilities, public transportation facilities, and so on. Interaction medium refers to the information in the process of interaction, and the information is presented in the form of two-way communication activities in the process of interaction, including the reciprocal activities of sending, receiving, and feedback.
Interactive public facility design is the process of applying the concept of interaction to the creation of public facilities that communicate and interact with people. Designers take the needs of participants as the guide, strengthen the output information of public facilities to stimulate the participants and make them feedback, and then collect and analyze the feedback information to further optimize the output information of facilities.
The hierarchical structure of interactive public facility design is shown in Figure 4. Combined with environmental psychology, environmental behavior, and environmental demand hierarchy theory, the interactive facility design is divided from low to high into three levels: perceptual interaction layer, behavioral interaction layer, and emotional interaction layer, i.e., the foundation, middle ground, and upper level in the interactive facility design. The interaction and influence between the three levels constitute the main body and core content of interactive facility design.
Interactive public facilities design level
In this section, interaction design concepts are integrated into the modularized design of mutual aid facilities for the elderly and children [30]. The core functional space in the mutual aid facilities for the elderly and children is the activity room that contains various mutual aid activities, and in the design process, the mutual aid building is formed by the orderly arrangement of these mutual aid functional modules.
Recreation, teaching and sports three functional areas constitute the functional modules in the mutual aid building space, in the modular design process, the above mutual aid space is split layer by layer, and then combined, that is, the modular design of the community old and young mutual aid building is transformed into the main mutual aid modules of different levels of combinations, and this model design, the splitting of the resulting functional modules with a high degree of repetitiveness have the potential to serve as the basic module. The basic modules can form the basis for the combination of different modules in the mutual aid building, and the relationship between different modules and basic modules is in the form of multiples or fractions, so that the rules of mathematical combination of component-level modules and basic modules in the mutual aid building can be determined according to the characteristics of the mutual aid activities and the scale of the required modules.
Therefore, before carrying out the design of component-level modules, it is essential to determine the scale and type of basic modules. According to the range of suitable module sizes for the main mutual-help functions analyzed in the previous section, the size of basic modules should be defined from among them, and according to the scale of the mutual-help building space and mutual-help functions, the basic modules can be one or more than one, and if more than one, the size of the basic modules should be in accordance with the same modulus system. If there are more than one module, the basic module dimensions should also conform to the same modular system, so that they can form a suitable proportional relationship in terms of opening, depth and floor height.
When designing a variety of basic modules, it is necessary to completely split various functional modules such as recreation, teaching, sports and auxiliary, and a variety of types of basic modules will appear.
According to the module module applicable to the old and young mutual aid building space, select the basic module scale of each functional module, at the same time several basic modules should also have a spatial proportion relationship between to ensure that a number of basic modules can be determined through a certain mathematical relationship to combine into different functional modules, as shown in Figure 5 for a variety of combinations of basic modules.
Combination of various basic modules
Firstly, the teaching and entertainment unit is regarded as the basic module A, which corresponds to the leisure and entertainment component-level module and the learning and teaching component-level module, and is the module with the highest repetition rate and the widest applicability in mutual aid buildings, and its scale should meet most of the mutual aid functional space requirements. The rest of the physical activity, large space, and auxiliary function units are labeled as basic modules B, C, and D. The four basic modules should contain mathematical and theoretical relationships among themselves, and at the same time, should also meet the scale requirements of the specific functions they represent. According to the characteristics of the specific mutual building, two or more basic modules can be selected from these four basic modules to form other functional spaces. On this basis, other functional units such as tea rooms, kitchens and other functional rooms are harmonized with the basic modules according to their respective area requirements.
The centralized arrangement is mainly centered on the main mutual aid function module that can be openly designed. For example, the rest module, dining module, fitness module, etc., has a strong composite nature, and the other functional modules are arranged around the space in an enclosed manner and articulated through the activity space. This modular organization is economical and compact, simple function of small and medium-sized mutual aid buildings can be used in this combination, applicable to the urban center of the city with tight land use, while the various parts of the space is easy to interpenetrate, flexible and versatile suitable for mutual aid activities required for the spatial atmosphere. Figure 6 shows the centralized modular plan combination.
Centralized module flat assembly
The centralized combination mode can also be transformed into the atrium mode, which sets up the atrium space as the core space of the building instead of specific functional modules, and is suitable for large and medium-sized mutual-help buildings instead of specific functional modules. The functional modules are arranged around the atrium, and the space is vertically connected, which is the culmination of the mutual-help spatial sequences with stronger openness and permeable sight lines. The atrium can also carry a variety of mutual aid functions, providing a venue for community activities such as exhibitions, performances, lectures, etc. It is also the core node of public transportation.
Combination of main mutual aid module and mutual aid expansion module
When the auxiliary module required by the main mutual aid module only undertakes the expansion activities of the mutual aid space, the auxiliary module appears as an extension of the mutual aid space, and the main mutual aid module is closely linked, and may not be designed with a clear separation of boundaries, so the scale and shape of the auxiliary module can not be limited to the basic module scale, and the positional relationship with the main module is also more flexible, I’m poorly summarized in the experiential teaching module as an example of a few kinds of Combination mode, see table for detailed analysis.
Combination of the main mutual aid module and the preparation and storage module
When the auxiliary module contains the preparation and storage module, unlike the above situation, the main group of people participating in mutual aid activities does not use the preparation and storage module, so the auxiliary space should be combined with the teaching module as a relatively independent module. The two classrooms requiring auxiliary modules are treated as a single building unit, and a basic module space is set up in the middle of the two mutual aid activity rooms to accommodate the auxiliary modules. When the auxiliary space is used to prepare storage modules, the basic modules can be divided horizontally or vertically. Horizontal division is suitable when the two modules of a modular unit are two activity rooms with identical functions, and the auxiliary space in the middle is connected to each other for common use.
The modularized mutual aid facilities for the elderly and children designed based on the interaction concept of this paper are applied to City A, and a survey on the satisfaction of the functions of the facilities is conducted for a total of 200 people from 200 groups of the elderly and children in the city. The survey includes eight functions provided by the old-child mutual-help facilities, namely, sun and rain protection, rest for many people, reading and learning, drinking water, movie watching, chess and cards, handicrafts, and sports and fitness, corresponding to functional indexes 1-8, and the study also adopts the Likert scale, which makes it easy to analyze the quantitative evaluation of the satisfaction of the old-child mutual-help facilities proposed in this paper by old-child and young residents. Figure 7 shows the results of the survey on the satisfaction of the old and young mutual aid facilities.
Results of the satisfaction survey of old and young assistance facilities
From the data in the figure, it is easy to conclude that the overall satisfaction of residents with the mutual aid facilities for the elderly and children is high, with most of them scoring above 4 points. Specifically, residents’ average satisfaction ratings for the eight functions provided by the mutual-help facilities for the elderly and the young, namely, sun and rain, rest for many, reading and learning, drinking water, movie watching, chess and cards, handicrafts, and sports and fitness, were 4.165, 4.195, 4.255, 4.145, 4.3, 4.19, 4.26, and 4.27, in that order, and all of them were at the satisfactory level.
In this section, modular design is used as the independent variable, urban environment, economy, road density, population density, and distance from the city center are the control variables, interaction design concept is the mediator variable, and the composite nature of the functionality of the old and young mutual aid facilities is the dependent variable. A regression model was used to analyze the role of modular design in promoting the functional composability of old and young mutual aid facilities. Table 1 shows the results of the regression analysis of the functional composability of the old and young mutual aid facilities.
The analysis of the complex regression of old and young mutual facilities
| Variable | Regression coefficient | Standard error | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Environment | 0.0523 | 0.02 | 0.218 |
| Economy | 0.164*** | 0.015 | 0.000 |
| Road density | 0.0341 | 0.006 | 0.179 |
| Population density | 0.0578 | 0.012 | 0.367 |
| Center distance | 0.0183 | 0.023 | 0.415 |
| Modularity | 0.217*** | 0.004 | 0.000 |
| Interaction design | 0.143*** | 0.023 | 0.000 |
| Omnibus testing | 378.954*** | ||
| Hoster test | X2=112.576 p=0.147 | ||
| Correct percentage | 91.6% | ||
*, **, indicate p significant at 0.05, 0.01, and 0.001 levels, respectively
From the analysis of the data in the table, it is known that the Hosmer test p=0.147>0.05, which indicates that the model fitting value and the observed value coincide with the degree of consistency, and the percentage of model correctness is 91.6%, which indicates that the fit of this model is good.
As can be seen from the table, the urban environment, road density, population density distance from the city center are no longer the main influencing factors, while the urban economy, modular design and the accessibility of the interaction design concept have a p-value of less than 0.001, which is significant, and are the most important influencing factors, and the rest of the influencing factors have a p-value of more than 0.05, which is not significant. And the accessibility of urban economy, modular design and interaction design concepts all showed positive influence on the functional complexity of the facilities for the elderly and children, and their increase by 1 unit respectively increased the probability of functional complexity of the study unit by 16.4%, 21.7% and 14.3% respectively.
This paper utilizes a fuzzy comprehensive assessment algorithm to analyze the influencing factors when designing urban public facilities. The interaction design concept is integrated into the modularized design of public facilities, and a mutual aid facility building for the elderly and the young is designed for City A. The questionnaire evaluates residents’ satisfaction with the function of the facility, and combined with regression analysis, evaluates the influence of the interaction concept as well as the modularized design on the functional composite of the mutual aid facility.
The awareness level of the mutual aid facility for the elderly and children in City A is only 1.78, and most people lack knowledge about the system. When carrying out the modular design of mutual aid facilities for the elderly and children, the experts paid more attention to the influencing factors on the designability, and the fuzzy algorithm calculated its weight to be 0.6549. The average satisfaction of the residents with the mutual aid facilities for the elderly and children provided by the facilities for the elderly and children in the form of shade from the sun and rain, resting for many people, reading and learning, drinking water, watching movies, chess and cards, handicrafts, sports and fitness were 4.165, 4.195, 4.255, 4.145, 4.3, 4.19, 4.26, and 4.27. Urban economy, modular design, and accessibility to interaction design concepts all showed positive effects at the 0.001 level on the functional composability of the mutual aid facilities for the elderly and young.