February 7, 2017
The Metro connection from the Bloc to the 7th avenue station is finally open to the public! The event was both festive and pun-y, with officials using mallets to knock down actual blocks to provide access to the Bloc as shown in this video from the Bloc’s Facebook Page.
January 31, 2017
Ford‘s new Transportation Hub, located in the Westfield World Trade Center, has opened its doors! The design of the hub is meant to introduce Ford’s new branding initiative as being the future of transportation, both automotive and beyond. Oculus-design lighting provides a modern ambiance while not overpowering the many video installations, and is very flexible to allow for store layout changes as new additions are brought in.
Enjoy the video below posted by Fortune Magazine that describes the intent behind the store and gives a sneak peak of some of the futuristic tech components that visitors will get to experience first hand!
January 5, 2017
Drago Ristorante, located in Mid City at the Petersen Museum, is open! The restaurant is the next installment in a line of Los Angeles Italian classic eateries and follows in the footsteps of Drago (formerly of Santa Monica), Il Pastaio, Celestino, and Drago Centro in Downtown LA. The space was designed by FKA, and is described in Eater LA as being “in line with the Petersen Automotive Museum‘s new exterior aesthetic, with clean swooping lines and an international look by Felderman Keatinge + Associates. Stanley Felderman and co-designer Nancy Keatinge call it a “Streamlined modernism” melding traditional and contemporary elements”, which is a quality that is reflective in the food itself.
Oculus was so happy to design the lighting for this fun, airy space and the team cannot wait to go for a visit! Please enjoy the photos below from the Eater LA Article!
December 5, 2016
Congratulations are in order for CallisonRTKL, who were recognized by ICSC (International Council Of Shopping Centers) for their work on Westlake Plaza, in Thousand Oaks California. ICSC “Recognizes the premier shopping center and retail achievements in the United States. Awards will be given for outstanding achievement in design and development of retail properties and retail store design”. The award is the ICSC Global Award: US Design & Development in the category of “Renovations and Expansions”, and we are so pleased to get a mention as the lighting designers on the project.
Westlake Plaza was a unique project in that it chose to enhance, instead of tear down, an already established neighborhood center. From a lighting standpoint, the goal was to improve upon the technology and aesthetic while creating a residential, relaxed California feel. Read about the design thoughts in our project page for Westlake plaza.
Congratulations to CallisonRTKL, and once again thank you for inviting us to work on such a great project!
November 4, 2016
One of our designers had the opportunity to take part in the IALD event “Chase the Dark 2016” last night, and was able to contribute some really fantastic photos!
IALD Chase the Dark is a unique international event described on their website as : “Each year, IALD members and non-members participate in “Chase the Dark,” an international lighting movement that tasks participants to photograph and share displays of light via social media during a 24 hour period as the sun sets westward across the globe. The results capture the creativity and diversity of the lighting design profession.” This year’s theme was “Light where you Live”, which encouraged designers to appreciate and photograph both the natural and man made light sources that illuminate their communities.
This was such a wonderful and unique way to appreciate light, thank you to the organizers for coming up with such a fun social event! Check out Spurthy’s photos below, and search #IALDChaseDark on any social media platform to enjoy other designers’ photos!
October 18, 2016
We are proud to announce that the REI flagship store located in Washington DC in the historic neighborhood near Union Station is opening it’s doors this week! We have had the opportunity to work on a few different REI locations with CallisonRTKL, but this store was really special with high concrete ceilings, a unique outdoor meeting area complete with string lights, and a coffee shop-like feel that the designers hope will inspire customers to sit and “plan their next adventure”. The lighting was designed to be unique to the store, but still carry consistent elements from new REI stores from around the country with the inclusion of LED high-bays and LED track lighting.
October 14, 2016
The Autry Museum of the American West recently opened a new exhibition called “California Continued” that consists of two renovated gallery spaces and 7,000 square foot outdoor space where the former Gene Autry backlot has been transformed in a new ethnobotanical teaching garden. The garden is home to over 60 plants that are native to the state, but also includes information on the history of how native peoples used the plants in their everyday lives. Designed by Matthew Kennedy of Costello Kennedy Landscape Architecture with the help of Native American elders, authors, professors and museum experts, who all worked to ensure that each intentional plant selection works with the content in the two new gallery exhibitions “Human Nature” and “The Life and Work of Mabel McKay”. This dedication to research is reflected the interactive displays that help visitors appreciate how each plant in the garden relates to California’s various micro-climates.
September 14, 2016
Oculus Principal Scott Hatton was invited by Designer’s Lighting Forum to lead a walking tour of The Point, a unique center-facing lifestyle center located in El Segundo. The space was designed to simulate a sort of “community living room” with warm lighting and a multitude of gathering spaces for a variety of events. The tour lasted about an hour and included a Q & A segment, in which Scott discussed not only the technical aspects of the fixtures themselves, but also the design process that goes into designing an outdoor space. Turnout was great, and we are pleased that we’ve already been asked to take part in a second tour on another of our projects!
Thank you to DLF for the fun opportunity to shed some light (pun intended) on our process as lighting designers!
July 15, 2016
Lido Marina Village is a shopping center located in Newport Beach, CA. We began work on the project in Early 2014, focusing specifically on helping to create an exterior ambiance that would match the high end retail stores that developers brought down from Los Angeles. The resulting vibe is high end luxury whose restaurants and fitness developments also serve as a community meeting ground.
The shopping center is now open, and shopping media site Racked has taken notice, describing the updates as a “Fashionable facelift”. Click here for the article and enjoy a multitude of pictures including both exteriors and interiors of the shops!
June 27, 2016
This Saturday was the annual Lumen West Awards put on by the Los Angeles and Orange County Sections of the Illuminated Engineering Society. This year’s theme was “Under the Big Top”, and guests were welcomed into The Wiltern by juggling mimes, zebra-like stilt walkers, carnival lights, and even vintage circus music!
Oculus was one of the big winners of the night, taking home 3 Lumen West Awards of Merit for interior lighting design for Google Orange County and Blue Ribbon Sushi, and also an Energy and Environmental Design award for Google Orange County.
We are honored to be recognized by our peers, and we would like to thank all our collaborators who have made this possible. This includes our clients who have trusted us with their projects, and our reps and manufacturers who have worked closely with us to get the drawings to reality.
May 20, 2016
Architectural Digest covered the store opening of one of our most recent finished projects, the Pirch store located in the chic SOHO neighborhood of New York City. “Located on the corner of Lafayette and Broome Streets, the interactive showroom cum test center encompasses three sprawling floors, each outfitted with realistic home vignettes in which a slew of appliances (from trusted manufacturers like Bertazzoni, Miele, La Cornue, Viking, and Thermador) can be tested.” The article goes on to describe a unique VIP opening party in which celebrity guests oversaw the creation of dishes that were created right on the working showroom floor, giving such sparkling reviews as “This is the most fabulous store I have been in, in all my 94 years. It’s so nice that service is coming back. Everything is so gorgeous”(Iris Apfel, designer, businesswoman, and fashion icon).
April 29, 2016
This week was a busy one with multiple site and aiming visits, but the team was still able to take the opportunity to drive down to Lightfair International 2016 in San Diego, California for a walk around the convention center floor to view all of the latest and greatest luminaires available from most of the major lighting manufacturers in the industry. But Lightfair isn’t just a large showroom, it is also a place where lighting industry professionals can learn, network, attend panels to inspire new ideas, and even interact with students who are just breaking into the industry. We had the opportunity to attend the 2016 IALD Awards Dinner at the San Diego Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park. The Awards Ceremony recognizes lighting design from all over the world and is one of the most prestigious lighting design awards, so we were very fortunate to be hosted by Wattstopper, Cooledge, Edison Price, Eaton, and Wiedenbach Brown Lighting. We won an IALD award a couple of years back, and we hope for a repeat performance soon!
April 28, 2016
After a week of climbing ladders and aiming thousands of lights, Saks Fifth Avenue at the Houston Galleria is open to the public! Their official opening event featured exclusive areas such as the Gucci Beauty department (one of only five in North America), cocktails, food by celebrity chef Stefon Rishel, and live music. We were so excited to work with Saks on both the exteriors and interiors in order to renovate the new 198,000 SF space to create the cornerstone of the new “Luxury Wing” of the Houston Galleria, and we are thrilled at the positive feedback we’ve received from them since!
April 16, 2016
One of our most theatrical projects is finally open to the public, and the reviews are fantastic! Working over the last 3 years with the fantastic team at PGAV Destinations based in St. Louis, we lent our lighting design skills to the “Sea Lions: Under the Boardwalk” feature by creating a warm, inviting, and playful backdrop for the performance. In addition, we had the opportunity to work with Jim Henson Company to create a unique Pre-Show entry area that wonderfully sets the tone by immersing audiences in the world with special effects lighting, animatronic characters, and tons of learning opportunities while they wait to be seated in the main theater. We were so happy to work on such a creative project that places great emphasis on educating about environmental dangers as much as entertaining.
April 1, 2016
Oculus Principal Archit Jain was invited to speak on the Illuminating Engineering Society of Los Angeles Panel “Collaborating with Lighting Designers-a Panel Discussion About Bridging the Gap between Artistic and Technical”. About a hundred people showed up and it was an evening dedicated to the idea that while lighting seems intangible during the the design process, it has a profound effect on the final outcome of a space. Ultimately they discussed how they work, and how they prefer to best work together to create beautiful and memorable spaces.
February 29, 2016
Created by the same culinary team who brought you Factory Kitchen, Officine Brera offers Northern Italian cuisine in a renovated 1920’s warehouse building, complete with original brick walls, window panes, and pitched skylight. The restaurant has been open for just a few weeks and already has rave reviews for their food from numerous sources including the Los Angeles Times, and we’re happy to read that the decor and ambiance is being highly received as well. We designed the lighting in coordination with the architectural design with our friends at (fer)studio.
Word on the street is that reservations are going fast, so if you can, try to get a seat facing the open kitchen and wood burning oven!
Image excerpts from LA Weekly’s restaurant feature here.
January 31, 2016
The Beer Park by Budweiser, located right on the strip and directly under the “Eiffel Tower” of the Paris Las Vegas Casino, celebrated it’s grand opening just in time for Superbowl yesterday, and was covered by Las Vegas Weekly. The article touts the new Beer Garden as having a design that will appeal to both tourists and locals, saying that “the 10,000-square-foot rooftop space actually looks like a park”. With Astro-turf and picnic benches, this restaurant is all about casual, welcoming accessibility; a quality that sets it apart from the rest of the strip dedicated to the glitz and glamour of Vegas.
The party was complete with just-flown-in brews, and a herd of the iconic Budweiser’ Clydesdales to kick of festivities. A big thank you to Gensler for bringing Oculus on as the lighting designers for this festive restaurant! Please read the full article, and enjoy some photos of the opening even, below.
November 10, 2015
If you missed the “The Ten Biggest Lies About LEDs” at Light Show West in October, you’re in luck! The panel discussion was featured on an episode of KCRW’s DnA (Design and Architecture) and summarized in an article published on KCRW’s website.
Oculus Principal Archit Jain participated as one of the panelists and he was quoted describing the current state of LED lighting in our projects: “100 percent of most of our projects are LED lighting, they are the source of the future. Until a couple years ago we had to sell LED lighting to our clients, now our clients are coming to us and asking for LED lighting on our projects, but the challenge we are now facing is that the kind of quality required for a project may not be available at the price the client wants.”
September 21, 2015
LEDs bring several possibilities. At the same time there are pitfalls. What are the biggest issues with LED lighting that we have encountered in the last many years? How does that effect the decisions of how LED lighting is used within our projects?
Join an IIDA panel discussion with Oculus principal Archit Jain, along with Scott Johnson (Principal – Brilliant Lighting Studio, moderator), Moritz Hammer (Senior Associate – KGM Lighting), Heather Libonati (Principal – Luminesce Design) and Sean McMurray (President – ALVA) to review how lighting has changed in the last few years, and what are some pressing concerns that still need to be addressed.
LightShow West, Wednesday October 21, 4:00 to 5:00 PM.
Los Angeles Convention Center
August 20, 2015
Located in the old Verizon building on 7th Street in Santa Monica, Cassia (French-Southeast Asian fusion bistro) and Esters Wine Shop and Bar opened within a few weeks of each other this summer. Santa Monica food gurus Josh Loeb and Zoe Nathan teamed up with their Rustic Canyon and Milo & Olive wine director Kathryn Weil Coker for the wine bar, and collaborated with Spice Table’s Bryan and Kim Ng for a joint effort on the Bistro. The two upscale but sophisticatedly subtle eateries occupy the first floor of the 1937 art deco building on opposite spaces facing the entry lobby.
We designed the lighting in coordination with our friends over at Montalba Architects for Cassia, and with Oonagh Ryan Architects for Esters, both of which were eagerly anticipated and highly praised by food critics as “one of the most important restaurants to open in Santa Monica this year“.