dakota.tracht@gmail.com
773-680-7213
My work in Interior Design is primarily in the areas of sourcing (textiles, furniture, paint colors, lighting, materials), furniture layouts, interior redesign (CAD Drawings, Sketchup visualisation, and styling (objects, books, fine art and clients’ current items).
Spellbound bar is a magical immersive bar and themed event, dreamed up through a collaboration between the Magic Castle in Los Angeles and Princess Cruises, which debuted in March of 2024.
Scope: Interior design (furniture sourcing), Color Design, modeling (Sketchup), CAD, Art sourcing, Styling, leading installation team on the ship in Monfalcone, Italy.
The Music Room- A feminine room featuring Victorian women musicians, a self-playing piano, and an activated birdcage with a Cockatoo that flies around the room. Isabella, its famous piano player, is never far away.
The Parlor Bar - A bar with lots of activation to catch your eye and amuse you as you have a magical cocktail. Spinning cogs and a wheel back bar art that creates a picture, activated barstools, a magical clock.
The Library- A magicians library and Victorian curio cabinet come to life! Directional audio whispering, books that come to life, and Victorian curio items that spark curiosity and imagination.
The Library- A magicians library and Victorian curio cabinet come to life! Directional audio whispering, books that come to life, and Victorian curio items that spark curiosity and imagination.
The residential library inside of Hoyne House in Chicago’s Wicker Park is more akin to an interactive art installation.
While the library houses the family’s small collection of books, the goal of this library was to act as an artistic backdrop to the family room with an open-concept kitchen.
The books move through color in the form of an ombre - starting with darker hues and colors at the bottom, and slowly fading out to white.
Scope: library shelf design (inspired by Chicago’s Aqua building by Jeanne Gang), LED lighting design and sourcing, book installation design, book sourcing, installation.
The Bookshelves- Inspired by the Aqua Tower in Chicago, these undulating bookshelves house an installation of over 4,000 books, and are lit by flexible LED strips. The undulating nature of the shelves is soft, and adds soft texture to the large wall.
The Installation- The installation has symbolism throughout, including decorative and commemorative items passed down generationally through the family.
This residential remodel in Chicago was a refresher to an already well-loved home. Built in the early 1900’s, the home had good bones, and the goal was to modernize it in a full remodel, refurnishing, and decor.
Scope: furniture layouts, fabric and furniture sourcing, project management, styling, CAD drawings.
Park Remodel - Family Room Poposals
Remodel - Modernizing this urban kitchen meant bringing in light colors to make it feel more spacious. Texture and pattern in the tile selection gave the room a light touch of sophistication.
The interior design of this home centered around the couple’s extensive preColumbian and modern art collection. Wall colors were chosen to highlight the paintings, textiles and decorative items they loved. Furniture was chosen to compliment the artwork, and add a level of sophistication to the home.
Scope: furniture layouts, fabric and furniture sourcing, project management, styling, color, CAD drawings (kitchen and bookshelves).
Bold color choices compliment the art - both modern and antique.
My body of work in architectural surface design includes kiln-cast glass, woven metals, stainless steel finishes, and architectural graphics. Color, material and scale studies are central to process work in an effort to create classic design, backed by manufacturing technology and material innovation.
For Forms and Surfaces, standard material product development was central to my role, but custom graphics for interior designers was where true creativity was at the forefront of problem solving. Hand processes enriched the vast industrial design capabilities and technology at this company as leaders of their field.
This cast glass collection features precise, small-scale textures reminiscent of woven materials.
Scope: material research and innovation, mold design, prototyping, final design, marketing hand-off and literature.
To achieve a precisely controlled look, I decided on metal molds as the best vehicle both for pattern creation and balance between clear glass and frosted areas.
In addition to a monolithic look, we created a line laminated with patterned graphic interlayers in a choice of Black or White.
Glass is inherently transparent with a textured surface; and the interlayers provide color and graphics.
The collection has customizibility built in- where customers can choose color and scale in graphic form.
Working with company out of Milwaukee to weave the metal molds, I achieved desired pattern and texture essential for casting glass in architectural-sized kilns.
Glass - Pro le - Simple and classic, the collection was inspired by clean lines in architecture. Pattern development was led by the desire to offer varying levels of privacy in a space, where these lites of glass separate rooms in subtle ways.
Scope: material research and innovation, mold design, prototyping, final design, marketing handoff and literature.
Key to the design process was balancing aesthetics and function in a piece of glass that delineates space in a room or building. Problem solving dealt with mold making, mold storage, material composition of molds, and production runs.
and Pattern Studies
Glass - Pro le - Collection
Cast Glass - Pro le - Pacific Gate
This collection was meant to give the soft, tactile properties of textiles to laminated glass.
Glass as a material can feel cold, and digital processes as a focal point in design can often times result in graphics that look and feel non-specific. The process of dyeing fabric yields a different result every time. Showcasing hand-processes, enhanced by digital design, the Shibori line created a unique collection of textile-based glass designs for experimental spaces.
Scope: Pattern design, glass prototyping, material innovation (new glass finish), Hand-dyeing, largescale scanning, Adobe Photoshop, Stack Printing, digital printing.
Producing a hand-crafted product at architectural scale presents a unique set of challenges. To avoid digitally manipulating the fabric, patterns were dyed to scale, and scanned at full scale resolution. Research included finding dye techniques that could lend themselves to 5ft wide x 12ft high pattern yield.
Collaboration with Sunbrella for upholstered textiles for Forms and Surfaces outdoor furniture line.
Scope: pattern design, collaboration with outside vendor (Sunbrella), fabric research, Color design.
Adding a textile to the Vaya furniture line meant honoring the clean silhouette of the chairs and bench. A fresh interpretation on outdoor lounge furniture, we wanted the collection to feel inviting and clean.
In 2018, we produced our first upholstered product: a collaboration with Sunbrella, where I led design of custom fabrics to pair with our standard furnishings.
My work in fashion design spans textile creation, collaborations with couture and ready-to-wear designers, and creating collections of my own. Starting from scratch at the fiber and yarn level, I harness knit and woven technology and a honed sense of touch to create textiles that are meant to be lived in.
A conceptual clothing line made for RISD MFA Thesis inspired by andean textiles and draping from one piece of cloth. Scope: knitwear, print design, draping, industrial knitwear techniques, garment production, fashion styling.
Couture pieces designed and produced for Marchesa, New York. Hand-dyed goose feathers, lace, hand sewn feathers.
Scope: Garment Production (garment shape, fittings, construction); Textile production; Styling.
For this knitwear collection, I drew inspiration from my hometown of La Paz, Bolivia, and from the Nazca lines in neighboring Peru. I handloomed every piece on flatbed knitting machines, letting instinct guide much of the creative process.
Scope: Knitwear production, fashion design, color, garment design, styling, photography.
Scope: Pattern Design, color design, garment design and construction, embroidery design.
Architectural Surfaces // Interiors // Textile Design
www.dakotatracht.com
dakota.tracht@gmail.com
773-680-7213