Oculus Principal Archit Jain in LD+A Magazine

Archit was recently featured in Lighting Design + Application magazine this June. The topic was to describe the piece of public works or infrastructure architecture in Los Angeles that you would most like to light. Archit describes lighting the 105-100 freeway interchange…

When friends visit Los Angeles, the overwhelming impression that they are left behind are not the individual buildings, but the movement that comes from driving around on LA’s network of freeways. Most places are 20 minutes away and accessible on freeways. You ride them to work, to school, from the airport, and perhaps even for grocery shopping. So what better structure to honor than these everyday functional pieces that have come to define LA? And of these, the 110-105 interchange.

Rising 10 stories in the air and combining light-rail trains, high-occupancy vehicles and individual cars, with airplanes to LAX flying overhead this monument to transportation characterizes LA as the hub and melting pot that it is. Imagine the underside of 110N lit up in its own characteristic color as it melds with the color of the 105W, or 105W to 110S or the green-line as it goes east to west. Lighting on the medians and perhaps even the pavement, that reacts to the speeds of the cars on the freeway. Or to the weather, or based on the current Hollywood blockbuster. A glowing monument that is kinetic, ever changing, 120 feet tall, hundreds of feet wide and a representation of the metropolis and world city that is Los Angeles.