Embedding Place-Based Care in Age-Friendly Design for Rural Public Spaces

Against the backdrop of rapid population aging, rural public spaces face growing challenges in meeting the everyday needs of older adults. Drawing on a place-based care perspective, this study develops age-friendly design strategies attuned to the spatial and cultural characteristics of rural environments. Using a mixed-methods approach that includes field observations, structured interviews, and questionnaire surveys, we identify the needs of older adults in rural public spaces. These needs are first clustered using the K-means algorithm and then analyzed using the FKANO model to extract core priorities. Their relative importance is quantified by an integrated procedure that combines ordinal relation diagrams and entropy weighting. Building on these results, we propose an age-friendly design framework and validate it with spatial simulation to assess scale, accessibility, and connectivity. The findings highlight five critical features prioritized by older adults in rural areas: non-slip surfaces, barrier-free access, safety railings, lighting systems, and public restrooms. The study provides a targeted and actionable pathway for the age-adaptive transformation of rural public spaces, offering both a theoretical foundation and a practical design paradigm for aging-friendly rural environments worldwide.