Nicole Martineau, AIA

Motivated by a ceaseless desire to improve the profession, Nicole Martineau, AIA, is a model leader who is committed to engagement and has embraced the role of citizen architect. A clear representation of the future of architecture, Martineau is an innovator at her firm and an eager mentor of her fellow young architects.

A senior designer at Boston’s Arrowstreet, Martineau has thrived in her leadership role and develops new project delivery standards, leads mission-driven initiatives, and advances firm-wide goals. Her impressive toolset was required when she led the refresh of the firm’s 1999 award-winning design of Providence Place in Rhode Island’s capital city. Nearly two decades after it opened, Arrowstreet was re-engaged to refresh the entry points of the 1.4 million-square-foot shopping complex, and Martineau was instrumental in the design and ensuring the mall remained open and operating during the renovation. At Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, she ensured that three new faculty housing units adhered to the school’s ideals of environmental stewardship and delivered its first LEED-certified residences.

After achieving licensure, Martineau’s drive for advocacy led to her involvement in the AIA and the Young Architects Forum. She quickly became the YAF regional director for New England, a position she held for four years before assuming the role of the knowledge director. Inspired by the energy of like-minded professionals, she organized nine sessions at the 2016 AIA Convention in Philadelphia. In addition, she helped plan YAF Summit25, which in October 2017 gathered design professionals nationwide to document ideas that will redefine practice and advance the profession in an economy of innovation and change.

Prior to her work at Arrowstreet, Martineau spent over 13 years at TMS Architects. Her passion for historic preservation was vital to the success of TMS Architects renovation of The Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a Victorian theater constructed in 1878. In 2009 she completed a sabbatical in Washington, D.C., for National Park Service Heritage Documentation Programs, which administer the Historic American Buildings Survey. After completing the program, she applied her experience to become vice chair of the historic district commission in her hometown, Exeter, New Hampshire. In this role she facilitated community outreach programs and rewrote the town’s historic guidelines and applications—which had not been updated since 1984—to conform to current federal standards.

Dedicated and prolific, Martineau has already made considerable contributions to the profession in her young career. Her programs and ideas provide guidance for her colleagues and have enabled her fellow architects to become stronger business leaders.