Hi, I’m Karlotta
______I like to excite, inspire and provoke
______I work creatively in Vienna, Cologne, Potsdam & many places inbetween
______I hate sitting still
______I take photographs, curate and construct
______I get excited about lots of things and am always curious
______I love working with other people – especially the youngest ones
______I design and facilitate participatory processes
______I enjoy listening to other people’s stories
______I’m happily working on crafting my own story
Enjoy my little project world <3
& get in touch if you'd like to collaborate :)
unsichtbare m2 | on methods of co-using underused spaces
2026
unsichtbare m2
-----
@ Social Design Studio, Vienna
Project Team:
Karlotta Leonie Paul, Susanne Büchele, Marie Siebdrat & Lukas Kobel
In cooperation with:
La21-Group: Zukunft im Van-Swieten-Viertel
[by Grätzllabor Vienna]
„invisible m²“ expands the definition of vacancy: How can underused spaces be co-used by the neighbourhood?
As a platform, it negotiates between owners and co-users in Vienna’s Van-Swieten-Viertel. Through collective mapping and activation with neighbors, these spaces are made visible in their streets. By uncovering local knowledge, new conversations about existing resources come up: Can vacant apartments, storage rooms, and overlooked garages find temporary co-use?
more info: unsichtbare-quadratmeter.com
wilde werkstatt | workshopformat for kids & publication
2025/26
wilde werkstatt
-----
@ Social Design Studio, Vienna
Project Team:
Karlotta Leonie Paul, Akina Hocke & Viktoria Aksenova
In cooperation with:
ZOOM Kindermuseum Wien
Wilde Werkstatt began as a temporary studio for creative work with children at our exhibition space in Floridsdorf. As kids explored neighbourhood ideas through crafting and storytelling, the project continuously adapted to their needs, evolving into a flexible, participatory format. This required us to rethink our role as facilitators and embrace uncertainty. These experiences are reflected in the zine Curating the Chaos on co-creative work with children in social design projects.
love triangle | encounter object
2025
love triangle
-----
@ Social Design Studio, Vienna
Project Team:
Karlotta Leonie Paul, Simon Wallis, Laura Fellerer & Milena Novak
Supervised by:
Peter Sandbichler & Jakob Glasner
In cooperation with:
Wiener Festwochen 2025
‚Love Triangle’ is a playful encounter object made of cardboard and foam – designed and implemented for the Wiener Festwochen 2025.
The idea came about while playing around with raw foam mattresses. It is a kind of ‘mattress camp’ where people can come together and sit around in a playful and low-threshold manner. The mattresses were propped up on a cardboard construction. The inspiration here was Peter Sandbichler‘s cardboard object art and his expertise with the material.
The result was a playful, cosy piece of furniture made of raw foam and cardboard that invited people to come together in the library during the festival.
living sauna | mobile sauna laboratory
2025
living sauna
-----
@ Social Design Studio, Vienna
Project Team:
Karlotta Leonie Paul, Ilia Gromov & Franz Hagmann
Supervised by:
Predrag Milić
Pubilcation:
https://phaidra.bibliothek.uni-ak.ac.at/detail/o:74568
This project plays with sauna experiences as a tool for grounding moments and as a platform for inspiring and meaningful social encounters. In the ‘living sauna‘, people are invited to relax, think, connect, and create together. And to activate the joining sauna enthusiasts even further, we want to break with the usual relation of guests buying a service. Therefore, we invite everyone to play an active role, be it by setting up the sauna, performing an ‘Aufguss,’ or contributing a poem, a topic to discuss, or anything else. Besides a variety of hosted events, we compiled a publication with the collected knowledge and a selection of different inspiring projects. This ‘sauna manual’ aims to inspire and support people around the globe to live sauna through three major approaches: join, borrow, and build.
sitz_mal!| school workshop & research toolkit
20223
sitz_mal!
-----
Bachelor Project & Thesis by Karlotta Leonie Paul
@ eocisgn/Akademy for Design, Cologne
Supervised by:
Uwe Boden, Jörg Gätjens & Bettina Beltz
Project Documentation:
sitzmal.de
The future of our society is sitting in school—on predominantly inadequate furniture. It is literally stuck in prefabricated patterns of thought, action, and posture. So far, the individual needs of learners have only been met with cautious design solutions.
Against this background, sitz_mal! explores the scope for leeway in the design of learning furniture. In a workshop under the leitmotif Prototype Suitable Learning Spaces, the shortcomings of existing seating are identified in a participatory manner with the learners. Through several research phases, the adolescents develop an awareness of their needs using tools from the research kit and translate their visions for suitable furniture into initial prototypes.
sitz_mal! thus outlines a proposal for how furniture design can be rethought in the context of individual requirements: from the standardized (school) chair to a process-oriented design that allows and encourages transformation and movement.
man muss das wachs erst zum schmelzen bringen|interactive exhibition
2023
man muss das wachs erst zum schmelzen bringen
-----
Project Team:
Karlotta Leonie Paul & Mona Hesselmann
Exhibited @ la felce Gallery, Cologne
Make a map, no photos or texts.
To find myself in you, to find myself through you.
An approach to the place of being within.
Relate to each other. Listen to each other.
Softening subjects. Intensity instead of identity.
Dialogue turned inwards: here for everyone.
This space does not want to show pictures.
This space is a map!
Reference points become lines.
Where are yours?
In this overall structure of photographs and lyrical texts, we practiced listening and observing how we relate to each other. We took turns giving each other impulses and reacting to each other. How do we tell stories together when we share the past? Where are our points of reference? We explored what paths of communication actually look like and how they can be depicted. Lines grew between images.
wo will ich hin? | school workshop
2024
wo will ich hin?
-----
Project Team:
Karlotta Leonie Paul, Mona Hesselmann & Fabian Knöbls
In cooperation with:
Crespo Foundation, DE@ Mittelpunktschule Gadernheim, DE
As part of the “Das Fliegende Künstler[innen]zimmer” project by the Crespo Foundation, we developed a workshop for students at Gadernheim middle school with Fabian Knöbl. The project included redesigning the school bus stop, with 7th-grade students participating over two days.
The bus stop is a place where young people wait every day, often seen as a temporary stop rather than a space to “take a break.” The aim was to transform it into a stimulating, beautiful space. In the workshop, participants painted the bus stop with cheerful colors and designed posters displayed with magnets. This created a lively, inviting space through collaborative action. The workshop‘s leitmotif was: Where do I want to go?
This question encouraged learners to think beyond school—about their future, dreams, and life goals. The creative process stimulated their imagination, promoting self-efficacy. The workshop allowed them to shape their environment and reflect on their personal wishes and goals.
re:member|interactive cabinet of curiosities
2023
re:member
-----
@ eocisgn/Akademy for Design, Cologne
Project Team:
Karlotta Leonie Paul, Marisa Christl, Mona Hesselmann & Katharina Pfeil
Supervised by:
Studio Quack
Stories can be told in many different ways. Some stories are best told in books, others are better told orally. Told through an object, a plant, a song, or a poem, a story can take on a completely different meaning.It is also the unfinished things themselves that have a lot to say. They are created in the process and are therefore unpredictable.
re:member creates a new space for memory. All the scholarship holders of the artists‘ village have been inspired and have created something during their time in Schöppingen. All the curiosities are worth lingering in this place because they shape it and make it unique.
re:member is a cabinet of curiosities for Schöppingen!
A presentation space for the relics, curiosities, and finds of this place, as they are known from historical cabinets of curiosities. The library now forms a part of the history of the artists‘ village, with the adjoining installation in the barn, and tells the story of the artists, their creative processes, and their work in Schöppingen in a special way. In all languages and whenever someone is listening!