THE STUDIO
We design meaningful home interiors.
Trace was established in Miami, Florida in 2012 by interior designer Renata Lessa Bastos. With an architectural foundation from the University of Miami and early experience at high-end architecture and interior design firms across the Miami area, Trace has grown into a practice defined by an artistic sensibility grounded in technical rigor and cultural fluency.
Her personal portfolio spans over 100 residences across some of the region's most coveted addresses — from Star Island and North Bay Road, to Acqualina and Turnberry Ocean Club — and extends internationally to São Paulo, the Bahamas, and beyond.
From 2014 to 2018, Trace was engaged by Latin music icon Shakira to completely reimagine her 10,000 SF Miami Beach residence on North Bay Road. The project was featured extensively in Architectural Digest and numerous other publications and remains emblematic of the studio's ability to bring both rigor and soul to the most demanding residential commissions.
Trace is a Miami-based studio with a presence in New York City serving a discerning clientele on bespoke home interior projects.
MEET THE FOUNDER
Renata Lessa Bastos
Renata (Ray) Bastos is an American-Brazilian interior designer whose architectural foundation, curatorial training and cross-cultural fluency converge to define her residential interior design practice.
After establishing Trace and building a significant body of residential work in South Florida, she pursued an M.A. in Museum Studies in Barcelona, drawn to questions about the symbolic dimension of design and the meaning of objects. That period of curatorial research and gallery work continues to inform how she approaches a home: not as a backdrop, but as a living environment made of relationships and rich meaning making.
The pandemic brought these questions into sharper focus. What had always been an intuition — that a well-designed home should meet not only functional needs but emotional and psychological ones — became a defining commitment. Projects at Trace are designed not only to be beautiful, but to feel nurturing on a sensorial and somatic level.
This pursuit has led Renata's ongoing design studies and has defined the values at the core of the studio's practice: wellness, responsibility, and delight. Her design philosophy draws from slow design, Japanese aesthetics, vernacular craft, and the humanist spirit of the Arts & Crafts movement.
