Karsten is a director of KHBT Architects in London and Berlin and a Professor for Architecture and Construction at Berlin International University of Applied Science.

He is a qualified architect and joiner and since his studies a partner of the osa_office for subversive architecture, a network for spatial experimentation that pushes the boundaries of common practice in architecture.

Karsten worked as an architect at Foster and Partners in London after he graduated from the Technische Universität in Darmstadt.

After moving to London Karsten and his colleague Bernd Truempler also operated as the UK based branch of osa and created spatial works that gained local and international attention. In 2009 they won the special award at UK's prestigious Young Architects of the Year Award (YAYA).

Before Karsten joined Berlin International he was a Senior Lecturer at Manchester School of Architecture and an Associate Professor at the ESA, Ecole Special d'Architecture in Paris.

He has been invited to lecture internationally including the Royal Academy of Art in London, the Museum for Modern Art in Warsaw, the British Council in Moscow, the Goethe Institute in NY and the European Cultural Capital Guimarães.

…the hidden intrigue…

...” they look for the hidden intrigue of each site, of what its occupants may think or hope or fear, and work to bring it to the fore, to visualize and embody it. In that sense, they are setting up journeys in the liminal space between our inner world of dreams and memories, and the everyday inhabitable place we share with others, which shapes our dreams and, in turn, can be shaped by them. Choosing, as they do, to operate 'in between' so many levels, one should not attempt to pin osa/KHBT down to a signature style, project or tagline. What they do is an ongoing process, which follows and mirrors the life of the city (albeit through something more akin to Alice's looking glass rather than the mirrored façades of corporate architecture)”... 

Dr.Alexandra Stara in Curating Architecture and the City (Routledge 2009, edited by Sarah Chaplin and Alexandra Stara) 

Lecture by Karsten at TU Berlin as part of the Scenic Talks Lecture Series