Sally “Sal” Gimbert, AIA, CPHT, LEED AP BD+C, is the founder and principal architect at Studio LODE | LINE. With over fifteen years of professional experience, her work reflects a culturally grounded, multi-disciplinary background spanning architectural design, structural engineering, and building-science leadership. Her practice is informed by global professional experience across Europe, Central America, Asia, and throughout the United States, resulting in a cohesive and highly collaborative design approach that integrates technical rigor, environmental responsibility, and longevity.

Sal’s foundational relationship to land, material, and making began in rural Australia, where she was raised on a 2,000-acre sheep and cattle property. Growing up with a father who is a skilled woodworker and a mother educated as a mathematician, she developed an early fluency in both hands-on craft and systems thinking. A childhood spent crafting play houses from salvaged materials, imagining the folds of flooded creek-beds to be defined rooms, and learning restraint in the Aussie environments where resources mattered, cultivated a deep respect for material intelligence, environmental stewardship, and sustainability. These formative experiences shaped an enduring understanding that design decisions carry long-term consequences for both people and place, and instilled a lasting belief that architecture must act responsibly—conserving energy, honoring context, and serving future generations.

She earned both her Bachelor of Architecture and Master of Architectural Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University, graduating valedictorian and summa cum laude. Sal began her professional career as a technical architect at SOM (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill) in Chicago, followed by structural engineering roles at BCRA in Seattle and HOK in St Louis and New York City, contributing to complex civic and institutional projects. She later transitioned fully into architectural practice at Field Architecture and Michael Hennessey Architecture (MHA) in San Francisco, where she led high-end residential design work ranging from single family ground-ups to multi-million dollar renovations, including the award-winning Ridgeview Residence.

In 2025, Sal founded Studio LODE | LINE on the belief that the true value of architecture lies in its fullest realized potential—contributing meaningfully to people, place, and the broader world, not only as built form but also as a social work. Motivated by a growing disappointment with much of today’s housing, built only to minimum Code and falling short in durability, health, and integrity, the studio was established to practice very intentionally beyond the code. Defined by quiet rigor, thoughtful collaboration, and a disciplined commitment to building science, Studio LODE | LINE works beyond those baselines to create spaces that perform exceptionally in the present while remaining responsible to place, climate, and future generations. Each project is approached as an opportunity to elevate possibility through architecture that is resilient, efficient, and deeply attuned to human experience.

Sal is a licensed architect (AIA-NV), Certified Passivhaus Tradesperson (CPHT), and LEED Accredited Professional (LEED AP BD+C). She lives in Truckee, California and primarily practices in the Reno-Tahoe area.

Outside the studio, Sal enjoys skiing, snowboarding, hiking, traveling and exploring all the far corners of the world with her family, as well as quite reflective engagements in small hands-on projects around her home, bringing the same curiosity and care to her personal life as she does to her work.