Integrated Design Methods for Sustainable Public Seating in Urban Communities—A Shanghai Case Study

Abstract

In the context of sustainable regeneration of urban communities, the sustainable construction of community urban furniture has gradually been emphasized. This study focuses on the existing problems of experience, culture, environmental protection, function, and other aspects of community urban furniture; starts from the user’s perspective to screen the user’s sustainable design needs for community public seating; and combines the scientific method to quantify and transform them into design factors to form a reasonable community sustainable public seating design program. Taking the public seating in Gumei Community Park in Shanghai as an example, the study adopts the qualitative research method to obtain demand indicators of users. It utilizes the integrated design framework of “AHP-QFD-FBS” to quantify the user needs and maps them into the product structure to identify the ten factors affecting the sustainability of public seating. A community co-creation workshop was conducted to complete a sustainability assessment with the help of life cycle assessment and scales. From the perspective of residents’ needs, it emphasizes the scientific process of demand transformation and ultimately produces sustainable design factors and serialized products for public seating. This approach introduces new ideas for the sustainable renewal of urban furniture and enhances the quality of urban residents’ leisure time.