Increasing attention is being directed toward understanding the impact of urban built environments on children’s health. The concept of the 15-minute city, or “15-minute life circle”, in China is significant; however, the needs of the pediatric population are often overlooked. Walkability and accessibility to urban service facilities are crucial for promoting children’s well-being. This paper focuses on the old city of Guilin in western China as a case study. It investigates the service facilities within a 15-minute life circle that affect children’s physical health, mental health, and social engagement. Utilizing the Walking Index method, this study assesses the walkability and rationality of these facilities in 621 neighborhoods. Data were gathered from 200 questionnaires and interviews with children, concentrating on their daily use of these facilities, supplemented by a multi-source analysis. The findings reveal that the Walking Index in the study area is generally low, with an uneven distribution, primarily influenced by road network density, block size, and urban landscape patterns. This study proposes the development of a “Children’s Healthy 15-minute Life Circle”, which would increase child-friendly service facilities, pedestrian infrastructure, and urban road network density. It also advocates for constructing service facilities that enhance children’s health and the optimization of the spatial arrangement of these facilities. Furthermore, it suggests the effective utilization of urban landscapes to create a diverse system of leisure spaces for children. This study offers valuable insights for enhancing the walkability of urban life circle service facilities and establishing a child-friendly city.

Human thermal comfort presents noticeable variation across urban and rural areas. Among previous studies, only a few field investigations focus on thermal comfort experienced by rural houses within hot summer and warm winter (HSWW) zones, especially across the north area. The existing thermal environment and energy-saving standards in China make it difficult to provide accurate guidance for building performance design in this area due to the lack of thermal comfort information for humans. This study undertook a field-based survey in rural houses in Hezhou, located in the northern part of an HSWW zone in China. Both on-site environmental data collection and subjective surveys were performed at the same time. Subsequently, this study examined the correlation of operative temperatures with subjects’ perceptions of the thermal environment. Our findings indicate that the actual neutral temperature in summer was 25.34 °C, whereas the predicted value was 25.17 °C. Temperatures within the range of 21.69~30.55 °C were considered acceptable during the operation. The elderly had a higher thermal tolerance than the adults. There was no significant statistical difference between males and females. Our findings contribute to the ongoing development of thermal comfort research for rural housing.