Partner & Co-Founder

Karen is one of five founding partners and her experience extends from London across Europe to Paris, Berlin and Prague, where her work has focussed on the workplace sector and public realms.

She is leading the design for the tallest tower in the City of London, 22 Bishopsgate, which is now under construction for Lipton Rogers Developments and AXA IM-Real Assets. The project proposes innovative solutions to improve the pedestrian experience, with shared amenities creating a workplace to attract talented individuals, nestled below London’s highest free-to-access public observatory.

Karen is the design partner of our new building at 4 Cannon Street, which houses the financial services company, Fidelity, in a red sandstone structure on an extremely sensitive site opposite St. Paul’s Cathedral. Public realm improvements played a big part of this project and a new public garden faces the historic St. Nicholas Cole Abbey.

For our new UK headquarters for Qatar Airways in Mayfair, she helped lead a design that has rethought an urban site along Conduit Street into a bold yet sensitive architectural statement that reflects the company’s goals and values.

In Paris, Karen led one of seven teams selected from over seven hundred applicants for the re-imagining of the Tour Montparnasse from a dated and inefficient eyesore into a twenty-first century working environment.

Also in France, Karen led the design of Tour First in La Défense, the tallest tower in France and the first to receive a sustainability rating, whose dynamic new top transforms the local skyline. Her award-winning Danube House in Prague was enriched by local craft and its dramatic interior spaces open the James Bond film “Casino Royale.”

Karen’s designs have been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. She spoke at the Royal Academy Mavericks programme, “After the Age of Starchitects”, and at the ULI France convention in Paris on “Le Droit à l’Hypercentre.”

Karen obtained a Bachelor of Architecture and a Bachelor of Art (Art and Architecture) from Rice University, and a Master of Architecture from Harvard University. Karen is a member of the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architect, and sits on the Board of the City Property Association. She has an interest in culture and language including French and German.