Xu Zhang

Introduction: Against the backdrop of China’s continuously aging population, adapting public service facilities in older urban communities for the older adults has become an important issue in the fields of urban and rural planning and community governance. Most existing studies focus on static functional optimization, ignoring the dynamic needs of the older adults in different situations. This study aims to reveal the dynamic characteristics of the behavioral needs of the older adults in multiple dimensions such as time, space, and social interaction based on the context theory. Method: Through field investigation and questionnaire analysis, combined with the analytic hierarchy process, we quantify the demand weights of the older adults and semantic judgment methods were introduced as supplementary verification. Discussion: Based on this, we propose strategies such as behavior-oriented flexible facilities, time-responsive light environment regulation, “behavioral overlap area” design for space composite utilization, and data-driven lightweight iterative mechanisms. These provide approaches to aging-friendly renovation that take into account both accuracy and implementability for resource-constrained older communities, addressing the cognitive gap of situational dynamics in traditional designs.

This paper synthesizes the literature from the fields of design education and social innovation to obtain a complete understanding of the development of these fields’ knowledge, and it also compares and cross-analyzes the two fields to determine the entry point for combining the knowledge in both fields. Two types of bibliometric software were used to capture and classify the data, and descriptive statistical analysis, co-occurrence analysis of keywords, knowledge evolution analysis of studies cited in both fields, and burst analysis were conducted. The results reveal that integrating technology into the field of design education in combination with shifting the focus from enhancing students’ professional competence to enhancing their overall competence can contribute to the improvement of design education quality. This is in the context of empathy research becoming a trend. Furthermore, the field of social innovation defines “social innovation” as a mutual agreement between practice and theory to promote solutions to society’s problems. The research in this field covers all aspects of social life and has a complex disciplinary background. The field of social innovation is currently mostly concerned with the relationship between universities and social innovation practices. The burst analysis reveals that open innovation is becoming a common focus of both fields and is developing into a popular research topic.