TRACE Design Group creates environments where ideas become experiences. Our work lives at the intersection of story, science, art, and place—where research is translated into spaces that invite curiosity, reflection, and connection.
Founded by Linda Ziemba in 2003, TRACE approaches each project as a collaborative act of discovery. Working alongside scholars, artists, scientists, and communities, we shape environments that awaken wonder, foster stewardship, and create meaningful human encounters.
TRACE facilitates workshops that open space for expansive thinking and shared discovery. These sessions generate content frameworks, circulation strategies, and visual tools that support planning, grant development, and fundraising.
Our work integrates educational theory, spatial choreography, and sustainable material practice. We listen first, then assemble collaborative teams to shape environments that are rigorous, welcoming, elegant and enduring.
TRACE provides fabrication documentation, design-build leadership, and installation oversight. Our streamlined process supports complex and fast-track projects while maintaining clarity, quality, and design integrity.
Look Up
The sky. A cathedral. The stars.
Seek the emotional moment – the instant we feel part of something larger.
Here begins stewardship. Here begins change.
Edit Ruthlessly
Let every word, every image, and every built element serve the central idea.
Clarity gives strength. Meaning emerges through restraint.
Natural is Best
Design with care for the living world.
Use materials that endure. Reuse where possible. Renew where necessary.
Build with responsibility.
Learn Through Doing
Experience teaches. Interaction reveals. Surprise awakens curiosity.
Create memory. Create story. Let conversation extend beyond the space.
A Light Touch
Elegance breathes. Restraint endures.
Timelessness lives in quiet clarity.
Form is Function
Movement shapes understanding. Circulation guides experience.
Pacing gives rhythm. Rhythm gives form.
Less is More
Leave space. Simplicity invites meaning.
Visitors complete the experience.
The Wander Effect
Let visitors find their own path — fast or slow, linear or meandering.
Discovery belongs to them. We are smart and can find our way.
INVERSA Leathers, Paris FR
NOAA Gray’s Reef Marine Sanctuary, Savannah GA
Tybee Island Marine Science Center, Tybee Island GA
Boston Children’s Museum Playspace
Boston Children’s Museum/ Science City, Kansas City MO
Major Taylor Museum, Worcester MA
The Robbins House, Concord MA
Mass Audubon Wellfleet Bay Sanctuary, Wellfleet MA
Mass Audubon Drumlin Farm, Lincoln MA
Mass Audubon Blue Hills, Mattapan MA
Mass Audubon Museum of Bird Art, Canton MA
MIT, Cambridge MA; Tomás Saraceno’s Aerocene
MIT, Cambridge MA; Olafur Eliasson’s Little Sun
Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi TX, MUSE Award
High West Whiskey Distillery Visitor Center, Park City UT
Handel + Haydn Society 200th Bicentennial, Boston Public Library, Boston MA
City of Boston Planning Department, Boston MA. A History of the Burlesque Theater
ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center, Burlington VT
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site, Buffalo NY
City of Boston, Boston MA. Harborwalk + Maritime History of Boston at Battery Wharf
Philadelphia Zoo, Philadelphia PA
Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences (VINS), Quechee VT
Harvard Center for Health and the Global Environment, Cambridge MA
EcoTarium, Worcester MA
Earthwatch and the University of Belize, Belize City, BZ
National Children’s Museum, Washington DC