Who We Are
tinkercraft: Design & Advocacy Group designs architectural and public space initiatives to promote climate justice in neighborhoods, cities, and regions facing climate risks and social and environmental vulnerabilities.
We believe that design is more than form—it’s a dialogue between human culture and the environment. Our work explores how sustainable, resilient design can address pressing environmental challenges, shaping spaces that support both ecosystems and communities. Rooted in principles of environmental humanities, we integrate cultural, ethical, and ecological narratives into our design process, creating projects that reflect the stories of the landscapes and the people who inhabit them.
We’ve worked with ecologists, planners, architects, biologists, and engineers on projects that range in scale from products to buildings and from street to region. tinkercraft reflects on, and designs for, the intersection of the social and the environmental. Considering all the myriad ways in which these two terms are defined, we remain enthusiastically open about new collaborations.
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Nicole Lambrou, Executive Director
Nicole’s work focuses on how the politics of climate resilience shape urban environmental transformations. Her research documents the work of planners, engineers, designers, ecologists, and everyday urban dwellers in making new natures in their cities, and explores the values and spatial imaginaries that drive their efforts. The projects and proposals taken on by tinkercraft are framed by this research.
Nicole is an architect with experience in designing public housing, schools, private institutions, and dwellings. Nicole received an M.Arch. from Yale University, her work has been exhibited in the United States and Europe, and she has received accolades for various architectural submissions throughout her design career. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Urban Planning from UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs.
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Collaborators
Thomas Auer of Transsolar Energietechnik; Mark Mueckenheim of MCKNHM Architects; Eric Lum, PhD, Architect; Peter Suen of Fifth Arch; Drake Hawthorne; Janet MacKinnon of AE Design; Healthy Active Streets; THRIVE Santa Ana; Wilmington’s Planning Deputy