2023 Summer Internship Now Open!
Oculus Light Studio currently has an opening for an Architectural Lighting Design Intern at our LA office! If you’re interested, read more below:
83 'Team News' posts:
April 6, 2023
September 28, 2022
Enlighten Americas Emerging Program Scholarship
IALD’s Enlighten Conference is back in-person this year! Each year the conference takes place in the Americas, Asia or Europe, and this year it will be held in sunny Palm Springs, CA. The event was created exclusively by and for lighting design professionals, with a series of boutique educational and networking events. Enlighten gives the lighting community a place to join together to share ideas, learn and explore solutions with likeminded individuals who are passionate about the lighting industry.
September 8, 2022
Oculus Celebrates 10 Years!
2022 marks the ten-year anniversary of Oculus Light Studio. Over this time, it has become a thriving firm that collaborates with architects and designers to deliver quality lighting design solutions that not only illuminate spaces but also enhance lives.
With a decade of highly technical knowledge and expertise under our belt, we never lose sight of the fact that we are creating spaces for people. We are a diverse team located in Los Angeles and Seattle and we are approachable, inclusive and always open to new ideas.
The care we take in every part of our work shines through – in the design of our wide-ranging projects, and in our professional approach to our work. Throughout our 10-year journey, we have assembled a series of ideas that drive our practice. Ten of these have guided us for the past ten years and continue to drive us forward. These are: be collaborative, creative, nimble, meticulous, purposeful, humble, fearless, charitable, impactful, and exemplary.
With over 90 lighting design awards, including Lighting Design Magazine’s Emerging Lighting Design Practice of the Year (2019) and Architect’s Newspaper’s Best of Practice Award for Lighting Designer in the West (2021), our future is bright! Many thanks to all of our collaborators and here’s to many more brilliant outcomes.
July 6, 2022
We’re Hiring!
Oculus Light Studio is currently looking to hire Senior Level and Mid-Level Architectural Lighting Designers for our Seattle and LA offices! If you’re interested, read more below:
May 17, 2022
Promotion Updates!
Oculus Light Studio is excited to announce the promotions of Sarah Wang to Senior Associate and Likhitha Rangaswamy to Associate!
Sarah has been an integral part of the Oculus team for over 8 years, working on a multitude of projects including The Culver Studios, Warner Media Workspace, San Pedro Public Market, Montclair Plaza Mall, multiple REI stores and award winners including Amazon Frontier, Blue Ribbon Sushi, Aviron and Drago Peterson. Sarah is an Associate Member of International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) and a LEED Green Associate. Sarah has been awarded with 3 Lumen West awards and an IES Illumination award.
May 2, 2022
Growing Oculus Team
Introducing our two new co-workers, Yeon Lee and Batuhan (Batu) Tumba! They started in the first few months of 2022 and already are making a tremendous impact conquering the recently awarded projects.
Yeon was hired on full time in January after his successful internship with Oculus over the fall. He recently received his BA in Interior Design from Cal State University, Northridge. During that time, he explored many diverse architectural subjects and had an “ah-ha” moment when he fell in love with lighting design. Outside of work, Yeon is an energetic fan of sports, and an aspiring illustrator.
March 8, 2022
International Women’s Day 2022: #BreakTheBias
Change cannot be achieved in isolation, and when I was asked to host the International Women’s Day event for WILD (Women in Lighting + Design), it became the perfect opportunity to tie in this year’s IWD theme, #BreakTheBias. This global campaign is set to raise awareness around bias, and to encourage action toward women’s equality. Bias, whether deliberate or unconscious, is holding women back in the workplace—with lower pay and positions, lesser opportunities, and inadequate family support. With a focus on building workplaces without barriers so women can thrive, the campaign seeks to elevate the visibility of women creatives, and to continue inspiring women to pursue their goals freely.
February 11, 2022
Oculus’ Newest Associate IALD Members
Oculus is proud to announce that two of our employees, Sarah Wang (Associate) and Sebastien Payannet (Sr. Designer), have both been accepted as Associates of the International Association of Lighting Designers.
December 3, 2021
Recent Additions to the Oculus Team
Towards the end of the summer, Oculus added two new team members, Leslie Crapster-Pregont and Sebastien Payannet! They’ve both hit the ground running and have taken on many projects in the short amount of time that they’ve been at Oculus.
November 10, 2021
Oculus is Hiring Again: Los Angeles/Seattle
About Us:
Oculus Light Studio is an award-winning lighting design studio based in the Culver City area of Los Angeles, CA with a satellite studio in Seattle, WA. We are passionate about great lighting design and how it can enhance the visual environment. We believe in collaborative design and enjoy working on a variety of project types. Oculus offers an engaging, informal and inclusive work environment, a 9-80 schedule with alternate Fridays off and work-life integration. Other perks include frequent catered lunches and a part-time office dog. Look us up on the web, Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook!
We are currently looking for a full-time mid-level lighting designer to join our diverse team currently working on a wide range of architectural lighting design projects located both locally and around the globe.
August 27, 2021
My Internship at Oculus
This summer I was incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to work with Oculus Light Studio and learn what it means to be a lighting designer. Having always been interested in the experiential side of design, and after taking a couple of lighting related courses, I became highly interested in learning more about lighting design. While I was just excited to be able to learn anything about the field of lighting design, I ended up having a far more educational and engaging summer than I could have asked for!
June 21, 2021
Oculus Team Updates
Summer has officially kicked off, and with that, the announcement of 2 lighting design awards, an IALD International Lighting Design Award of Merit for Amazon Nitro and a Lumen West Award of Merit for St. Louis Aquarium. We thought it couldn’t get any better!
Earlier this month, Bryce Kelly joined the Oculus team, coming all the way from the University of Colorado Boulder where he recently received a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Engineering with an emphasis in Lighting and Electrical Systems. He appreciates how light can be manipulated to shape our environment and improve our everyday experiences. We’re excited to have him join our growing (and busy) studio!
We’ve also been lucky to have a summer intern, Elizabeth Ellinger, who was able to start part-time in April while finishing her semester at USC, where she is majoring in architecture. Now, she’s jumped in full-time at Oculus and has hit the ground running!
May 27, 2021
Oculus is Hiring: Mid-Level Lighting Designer
About Us:
Oculus Light Studio is an award-winning lighting design studio based in the Culver City area of Los Angeles, CA with a satellite studio in Seattle, WA. We are passionate about great lighting design and how it can enhance the visual environment. We believe in collaborative design and enjoy working on a variety of project types. Oculus offers an engaging, informal and inclusive work environment, a 9-80 schedule with alternate Fridays off and work-life integration. Other perks include frequent catered lunches and a part-time office dog. Look us up on the web, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin!
We are currently looking for a full-time mid-level lighting designer to join our diverse team currently working on a wide range of architectural lighting design projects located both locally and around the globe.
February 22, 2021
Assistant Architectural Lighting Designer – Paid Summer Internship 2021
About us: Oculus Light Studio is an award-winning lighting design studio based in the Culver City area of Los Angeles, CA with a satellite studio in Seattle, WA. We are passionate about great lighting design and how it can enhance the visual environment. We believe in collaborative design and enjoy working on a variety of project types. Oculus offers an engaging, informal and inclusive work environment, a 9-80 schedule with alternate Fridays off and work-life integration. Other perks include frequent catered lunches (which we have continued remotely) and a part-time office dog. Look us up on the web, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin. continued→
January 7, 2021
Senior Associate Joel Weston
Oculus Light Studio is pleased to announce that Joel Weston has been promoted to the position of Senior Associate. Joel has designed a wide range of projects, both nationally and internationally. His projects include Saks Fifth Avenue New York Flagship, Nike Stores in Japan and Korea, office for Concord Music Group and hospitality project Mayumi. In addition, he has worked on many single and multi-family residential projects and mixed-use buildings.
August 11, 2020
My (Remote) Summer at Oculus
Annabelle Fung, a student at USC School of Architecture was Oculus’ summer intern. It was a first for Oculus, along with many other firms, to try internships remotely, and though the day to day interactions were missed, we realized that there were plenty of learning opportunities. Following is Annabelle’s account on her summer at Oculus. Here’s wishing you all the best in your upcoming endeavors, Annabelle!
Upon finishing my semester online, I was extremely grateful to have the opportunity to virtually join the Oculus cohort this summer. Working closely with the Oculus designers, I hit the ground running, wearing many hats as I dabbled in a variety of projects from mixed-use complexes to office buildings to single-family homes, designing away for interior and exterior lighting, crafting up renders, and even performing lighting calculations.
April 23, 2020
Birthdays from Home
We hope you have all been staying safe and healthy out there during this unusual and unprecedented time. As you may know, we are currently on week 6 of working from home and it has been an interesting ride to say the least.
Earlier this month, we celebrated the birthdays of our Senior Associates, Jane You and Carol Prendergast. Usually, we like to plan a surprise craft activity, get a cake, sign a card, and sing as loud as we can to embarrass them, but this year was different. We had to figure out a fun and creative way to put together a birthday card as well as continue to help make their day feel special for them. We also sent some yummy birthday cupcakes to brighten their day!
Here are the digital birthday cards that the team put together (click photos to enlarge):
From all of us here at Oculus, we wish you both the happiest of birthdays and look forward to gathering together in person soon!
March 23, 2020
Tools of the (Remote Working) Trade
So here we are in week 2 of the work from home, WFH, situation.
We have been following the statistical charts produced by Johns Hopkins University and see that as of today the US has the 3rd highest number of confirmed cases and many people who need testing are not able to get them yet. The outlook has not become positive yet with the rate of cases going up faster than in Italy, though we all try to make the best of a tough state of affairs.
January 14, 2020
Hello Seattle!
Oculus is excited to announce the opening of a studio in Seattle! We have been fortunate to work with long-term clients in the Seattle area for numerous years and even though we were a little further away, the collaborations have continued with multiple firms and repeat clients.
With Oculus Seattle, we will be closer to our many clients we enjoy working with, and it will be an opportunity to cultivate new relationships in the dynamic design community of the area. We will also be able to better service our projects already in design and construction in the region. Joel Weston, Associate, who has been in our LA office for over 4 years, is now permanently based in Seattle, where he is leading our work in the Pacific North West.
November 5, 2019
Celebrating Chao-Wei Su’s 5 Years at Oculus
Another 5 year anniversary here at Oculus and this time we’re celebrating Chao-Wei! Time flies when we’re having fun!
Chao-Wei started off as an entry-level designer in 2014, only a couple of years after Oculus’ inception. During his time here he has grown to be a reliable and knowledgeable lighting designer with a fair share of lighting design awards. His portfolio consists of upscale restaurants and office projects with repeated work with his many clients. One of his recent projects, Birdie G’s, has been called ‘Hottest Restaurant of the Year’ by the LA Times.