Everything started with the design-build studio “Learn-Move-Play-Ground. Improving courtyards of public primary schools in Cairo”, which took place in autumn 2012. During the twelve intense days of the studio, eleven students from Germany and twenty-five from Egypt worked together with a team of professors and experts from different fields to realise through participation with the children and teachers a new playing landscape in the courtyards of two public primary schools.

With this book, we would like to illustrate the process and the implemented design in detail. The goal is to offer ideas and hints of possible solutions, which could be developed for further projects and design-build studios. The furniture and landscapes we have realised are simple, low-cost, and built with uncomplicated techniques. Nevertheless, they have the power to be flexible and adaptable because their functions and meanings are open to different uses and can be readapted in line with the imagination and dreams of the children.