This study observed the habitation forms and the daily life in Hakka Tulou, which are the traditional collective housing in the western part of Fujian Province in China, created in Ming dynasty and still in use for living in the present. Through the environment-behavior analyses of the relationships between the spatial structure and the daily life of the residents living there, we clarified the habitation forms of the Hakka Tulou and gave the following three research results. First, the whole structure of Hakka Tulou is characterized by “closed” spaces from the outside and “open” spaces to the interior. In addition, the daily life of residents finds “openness” to the inside, while it is considered that residents and Hakka Tulou environment can mutually penetrate into each other by the co-visibility in their daily lives, and the distinctive life sensation was born from the sharing of the place. Furthermore, based on the Kurokawa’s theory of the Intermediate Space (1983/2006), we found the fact that Hakka Tulou had the character of the middle area in variety of shared spaces. From a theoretical consideration on the relation between the spatial structure of Hakka Tulou and daily life, the notion of “intermediate area” was finally proposed.

This study examined children’s activities in adventure playgrounds and community playgrounds to clarify the activities and environmental richness. Adventure playgrounds are playgrounds with the motto “play freely at your own risk.” Here, children can realize their feelings of “I want to do it.” Surveys were conducted at elementary school districts in Musashino, Tokyo. Playgrounds selected in this study comprised an elementary school playground, an adventure playground, and one park with and one park without playground equipment. Although the survey did not provide sufficient information regarding parks, a comparison of the adventure playground and the elementary school playground showed that the average duration of play in the adventure playground was about five minutes shorter, and common ball games were seen in various places. The repetition of play activities of short duration, such as moving from one place to another after a few minutes, created a series of stories. Additionally, the adventure playground, which is rich in play elements and equipment, created a variety of play stages.At present, there are few playgrounds in Japan, and it is difficult to create a variety of playgrounds. Overall, the findings suggest that such environments are beneficial for children.

Heat disorders in the elderly are potentially fatal, making their prevention an urgent issue. The purpose of this study was to raise awareness of indoor thermal environment control through intervention surveys conducted in residential nursing homes for the elderly. (1) As a result of the questionnaire survey on the actual conditions before the intervention, it was found that the countermeasures by the external solar shading device, which is considered effective, are not enough for the actual condition of summer thermal environment control for the elderly. The air-conditioner usage rate was 81.7% in living rooms and 66.7% in bedrooms, but 3.8% of the living rooms and 13.2% of the bedrooms. Overall, the respondents showed a high level of interest in the prevention of heat disorders. (2) After enlightenment, we installed external solar shades in 10 homes. A monitor survey showed that 6 homes considered that the installation was effective, confirming psychological effects. In the WBGT reading survey, the WBGT meter warning was used to promote action using the indoor thermal environment control. In this intervention survey, we increased awareness of the dangers of heat disorders through lectures, and we found that behavioral modification emerged by recognizing the possibility of improvement of the thermal environment through the shade and reading surveys using the WBGT meter.

This paper clarifies the interaction and participation in community cinema as a place for community. We examined three cases with different forms such as scale and functions among theaters built nationwide since the 2000s. For the theater managers, we conducted interview surveys, and in the case A with the largest scale among the three cases, we conducted a free-form questionnaire survey, interview surveys, and behavior observation surveys for 20 visitors.

The results of the survey are summarized as “Ladder of Participation”, and it turned out that it is important to have connections with visitors as human environment, and approaches as physical environments in order to create independent participation of visitors. As the stage of participation goes higher, the visitor’s connection is not only the conversation with the operator or staff ’but also the conversation among the visitors. In addition, in order to have a sense of ownership for visitors, a long-running event is required. Furthermore, visitors get the chance for participation to events of various cycles and periods and participate having a sense of ownership to them.

The negative image by caregivers and young people affect the quality of care services and the self-esteem of elderly people. However, the development of research and practice is expected to improve their image. The present study examined the effects of interior design on the images of elderly people. One hundred fifty-two subjects were tested and rated based on fifteen individual personality traits. The stimuli that was used for the study were of photographic images of the Japanese male and females in five different interior backgrounds. The analysis of ratings produced three factors; personality friendliness, social desirability, and activity for personality impression. Furthermore it was discovered that Japanese interior style positively effects on the

evaluation of personal friendliness and social desirability compared to other styles, but on the other hand it negatively effects on the evaluation of activity. These results suggests that that interior effect on the images of elderly people, and that the influence is differ by interior styles.