The intersection of culture and play: Evaluating children’s play spaces in Xi’an’s parks using the 7Cs framework

With rapid urbanization, children’s play spaces in Chinese parks face challenges related to functional monotony and a lack of cultural expression. This study examines heritage parks in Xi’an, one of China’s most historically significant cities, as case studies. Using a mixed-methods research approach and the 7Cs framework, we systematically evaluate these spaces to assess their effectiveness in meeting cultural and functional needs. The findings highlight several key shortcomings in current designs. First, an imbalance between static cultural displays and dynamic interactive elements limits children’s engagement and cultural immersion. Second, a lack of exploratory and challenging activities fails to meet the developmental demands of older children. Third, weak user participation mechanisms and inadequate feedback systems contribute to a misalignment between design intentions and actual user needs. To address these challenges, this article proposes integrating dynamic and interactive cultural displays, introducing multi-level exploratory and challenging features to accommodate diverse age groups, and enhancing user engagement and feedback systems throughout the design process. These recommendations aim to balance cultural preservation with modern usability, providing both theoretical insights and practical foundations for improving children’s play spaces in heritage parks while inspiring similar global efforts.