A design build studio approach is a design process that involves the users, local community, and professionals in the entire development of a project -from the conceptual ideas generation to the implementation phase. This paper aims at analyzing techniques of involving the school students directly in the process of improving their school built elements performance -with focus on social spaces such as playgrounds -from the design and planning phases to the implementation phase. The main goal is to develop a model to involve the students in the process of realization, which includes not only the satisfaction achieved at the end, but also the problems, difficulties, and compromises that have to be faced in the process. The case study for testing the design -build techniques with building's users and local community is Shagaret el Dorr School in Ibn Tulun district. The paper will test the efficiency of physical model technique for filtering and analyzing the spatial qualities and intended activities from the children's models and eventually transform these collected data and user's input into design proposals to be built. A survey was done to assess the process and results of the case study and sent to project's participants and professional architects. The results of the survey will be part of holistic criteria for school design participatory process. The end result will be a matrix of design build techniques and guidelines for working with users and community (phase 01), transferring into designs (phase 02), and building (phase 03).