“We have to rethink the playground,” said Susan Solomon, speaking last week at a panel co-hosted by the Municipal Art Society and Urban Center Books. Design and play experts had gathered to celebrate her book “American Playgrounds: Revitalizing Community Space” (University Press of New England). She said recreational spaces should be better than the usual “let’s plunk a piece of play equipment down and call it a playground.”

Ms. Solomon recalled a playground that caught her attention. Between 1961 and 1964, Louis Kahn worked with sculptor Isamu Noguchi to design a playground at Riverside Park between 103rd and 108th Streets that never came to fruition. When she was a graduate student, Ms. Solomon used to walk past a model of that playground that was on display at the Louis I. Kahn Collection, housed at the architectural archives at the University of Pennsylvania.

This spurred her interest in researching the idea of an architect and a sculptor collaborating on playgrounds. She researched how playgrounds have changed since the middle of the 20th century. She also said construction guidelines and concern over injury liability has limited the design of many American playgrounds.

Some designers, however, triumphed over these obstacles. Ms. Solomon gave examples, some of which were drawn from an 18-day trip examining playgrounds across the Midwest. The audience laughed when she told of the range of reactions to her photographing playgrounds: Some adults asked her to leave, while others handed her cards reading “my child is a model.”

She gave examples of play spaces that she saw as successful. One was a skateboard park in Louisville, Ky., designed by San Francisco-based architect Stanley Saitowitz. The park is open 24 hours a day, has no admission fee, is totally accessible, and a diverse assortment of people of varying ages frequent it. She said she even heard that between 11 p.m. and midnight, a group of workers from a local medical center came over after getting off work.

Ms. Solomon said the thrill of a seesaw is the potential danger it signifies. But today, due fear of any possible injury, designers have taken the fun out of them. She showed a slide of a present-day seesaw in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia that “barely moves.” But she next showed a seesaw in Rome that evades this problem by placing half-tires on the ground, to cushion the impact.

She also showed an example of a sandbox in Paris at Place des Vosges, and pointed out that outdoor play can occur in places other than playgrounds.

Ms. Solomon said “kids really flee” uninspiring environments. Roger Hart, co-director of the Children’s Environments Research Group at the CUNY Graduate Center, agreed. He said many American playgrounds resemble a “hamster cage” and that children “don’t particularly want to be there when they have a choice.”

Although many playgrounds feature equipment for running, jumping, climbing, and swinging, he said the concept of a playground has more to it than simply being an outdoor gymnasium.

Scandinavian educator and psychologist Helle Burlingame said a way to draw attention to the subject of playgrounds is to focus on how many Americans are either fat or getting fatter. She praised a learning lab that sends children outdoors during 80% of the calendar year. He quoted a playground director in Denmark, Kirsten Bjerre, who said, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothing.”

London-based artist Nils Norman described London’s adventure playgrounds, where children can design their own play environment, engage in community gardening, and interact with wildlife and animals such as chickens and hamsters. He said the closings of many adventure playgrounds were due to fear of litigation for injuries and their location in areas that are now prime real estate.

Audience member Thomas Lowenhaupt described hopes for a playground at Landing Lights Park, an 8-acre area in Jackson Heights. Rhode Island School of Design professor Nadine Gerdts suggested that a first step would be to have a constituency group of neighbors draw up a wish list of what they would like to see in the space. The audience chuckled when, answering a question about where one can find advice, moderator Nina Antonetti held up Ms. Solomon’s book.

One truly inventive but unlikely playground idea was mentioned that evening. Ms. Gerdts described a RISD workshop where children from Jamaica Plain, Mass., were asked to come up with ideas for a playground. Some students proposed a series of trampolines that would allow them to bounce from the school bus to and from school.

gshapiro@nysun.com