September 4, 2018
Check out these recent projects from Oculus Light Studio, including a turtle recovery haven that also educates the public about taking care of our planet’s creatures, this chic new addition to the Saks Fifth Avenue family in Miami, FL, and a stunning Downtown LA beacon.
Zucker Family Sea Turtle Recovery Center, Charleston, SC
July 27, 2018
Oculus Light Studio project, Saks Brickell, is featured in this month’s Contract Lighting Magazine, as “The latest Saks Fifth Avenue in the East boasts an innovative lighting design that mirrors this unique neighborhood in greater downtown Miami.”
How did our lighting design team highlight thousands of designer shoes, bags and clothing for a 70,000 sf luxury department store you may ask? Well, it was certainly no easy task and required many a fixture to be aimed on precariously tall ladders by our team. The final result is stunning and was certainly worth the hard work to achieve the lighting’s creative solutions, not to mention being recognized by the Shop! Retail Environments Award in 2017.
June 1, 2018
International Interior Design Association Southern California Chapter hosted their 2018 Calibre Design Awards on Friday, May 18th, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. We are happy to announce that our lighting design project, RDC/Studio111 Office, won in the Work-Medium Category at the Gala Event! Congratulations to RDC/Studio111, and a special thanks for including us as part of the design team.
You can view all the winning projects here!
May 21, 2018
Can you spot the Oculus lighting design project, Saks Brickell Miami, in Drake’s new music video for his hit single, God’s Plan? We sure did!
Around 2.28 mins into the video try and catch Drake inside the luxury department store as he giving away his entire music video budget to his fans, we thought it was pretty cool!
We can’t blame this spot for being chosen… the twinkling of the ceiling downlights and chandeliers are a great backdrop for the hip hop star and of course the lighting needed to be ‘camera ready’ for the music video set.
Watch it for yourself!
April 30, 2018
Thank you Contract Lighting Magazine for your beautiful write-up of our lighting design for Boston Consulting Group offices!
“BCG’s new space – spanning the top two floors of one of L.A.’s tallest office towers – needed to convey a 360 degree perspective and sense of ‘unlimited possibility.”
You can read the full article here!
March 27, 2018
Collaborating with architect Gensler, Oculus is excited to be involved in the redesign of the historic Culver Studios to transform into a contemporary urban campus. The impressive future tenant was announced as Amazon Studios and its affiliated creative firms. Tech and now media-streaming giant, Amazon will be leasing 280,000 sf of space at the 14-acre campus located at 9336 Washington Blvd.
There will be some updated design with new construction, yet the more iconic buildings will remain intact and be utilized by the new tenant. The overall lighting design will reflect some of the studios’ golden movie-age roots while providing a contemporary feel, and will help in beginning a new chapter in this studio’s rich history!
March 6, 2018
This new Burbank center is offering up a lot of potential, from family-friendly gathering spot to corporate event space. Not too mention beer fans will be ecstatic with the craft breweries moving in!
According to this recent Los Angeles Times article, “The proposed project would involve demolishing the existing 70,000-square-foot former AmeriCold cold storage warehouse and replace it with 33,000 square feet of event space, a roller rink, 19,000 square feet of restaurant, craft beer pub, café and special-event space and about 47,000 square feet of outdoor space where the public can congregate and eat.”
February 7, 2018
A few new good ones up on the website, including a music-lovers dream work space, a hip and collaborative design firm with a Platinum LEED certification and an immersive “Store of the Future”. Check them out on our projects page!
November 20, 2017
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) recently announced the winners of its prestigious 2017 Design Awards for Los Angeles and Long Beach/South Bay. The projects listed below incorporated Oculus’ lighting design and how lucky are we to have been able to collaborate on such a fantastic range of community enhancing spaces! Check out the photos to get a glimpse of each along with a few of the jurors’ comments!
October 18, 2017
Meet Riley Rose! This new candy-colored beauty store concept offers up everything from skin care to makeup to home decor. The new store brand comes from daughters of the Forever 21 founders, well known for selling the latest fashion trends and Riley Rose is no exception. Not to mention, most of their beauty products come from cruelty-free beauty brands!
The store caters to younger generations using ‘millennial’ pink in its palette and creating store installations that are ‘Instagrammable’. According to a recent Bustle article, “That’s how Riley Rose plans to set themselves apart from the Sephoras and the Ultas. It’s more than just beauty shop — they see themselves as a “lifestyle store.”
October 4, 2017
Get excited about the new Mississippi Aquarium scheduled to open in the spring of 2019! The new family-oriented aquarium is already making headlines as one of the most anticipated projects to come into fruition at the downtown Gulfport.
With both elaborate indoor and extensive outdoor exhibits, the family oriented tourist attraction will feature an array of marine life, dolphins included! But the first attraction in the changing exhibit gallery, will be penguins!
This is one of many ongoing aquarium projects for Oculus; click here to read about our lighting design for the Georgia Aquarium Sea Lions Exhibit and Show.
September 20, 2017
Congratulations to Studio One Eleven and RDCollaborative for recently receiving a Platinum LEED Certification by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Oculus Light Studio was happy to contribute by designing the offices’ sustainable and energy-efficient lighting. This is certainly a difficult feat to receive the highest of certification ratings as only 6% of LEED projects actually achieve Platinum certification!
August 31, 2017
A recently completed retail project in Toronto, Canada by Oculus Light Studio and CallisonRTKL architects, Roots is a unique shopping experience. The new store celebrates the background and handcrafted nature of this Canadian sportswear brand while including unique features such as a leather customization workshop and a woodland inspired fitting room lounge.
Read more about it in this article!
August 22, 2017
A diverse range of new projects are up on our website, a sunny park with a living room, a colorful tech hub, and a unique banking experience. Check them out on our projects page!
August 14, 2017
Since its opening back in October, more keeps on being written about REI’s flagship store in Washington D.C., as with this latest article in the August issue of VMSD!
Housed in the Washington Coliseum, this structure holds a pretty amazing past that ranges from serving as a professional hockey rink to the site of the Beatles’ first U.S. concert. The new store celebrates the building’s history while also attracting a hip crowd. What makes this store particularly distinctive is its focus on giving back to the surrounding community that extends beyond catering to the most adventurous of us, with a bike parts & repair shop, a new cafe and plenty of communal hangout space with fire-pits!
May 18, 2017
Have you heard of a Woonerf before? In case you haven’t, it is a Dutch term for a living street that includes shared space for pedestrians and automobile users alike. Check out this article to find out more about the world’s first Salmon Safe certified and environmentally friendly Woonerf that surrounds the new Arbor Blocks Development in Seattle, that we are proudly helping to design alongside Graphite Design Group and Hewitt Architects, Inc..
The Arbor Block Development, home to Facebook ‘s Seattle office, will boast its own green philosophy with the incorporation of green roofs, bioretention planters, water efficient irrigation, and a building design meant to preserve light and air for the existing sweet gum tree canopy along 8th avenue.
March 30, 2017
Yesterday marked the exciting unveiling of the Retail Design Collaborative/Studio One Eleven Space in Long Beach, CA. Oculus was happy to serve as lighting designers for the office, especially since we’ve had the opportunity to work with both groups on a great variety of projects since our inception. The office itself is around 30,000 sf and exudes a welcoming, industrial yet creative vibe from the start. Oculus employed two main strategies in order to break up the space. The first are long, slender linear fixtures that lead the eye inwards, welcoming guests to the reception and social gathering areas such as the kitchen. The second was to utilize industrial high bays over the open work space in order to deliver more uniform light over desk areas. Additionally, all vertical surfaces are illuminated not only to show off special features such as colorful art and green walls, but also to subtly balance daylight from the glazing at the offices’ street frontage.
March 20, 2017
Architizer reported today that over the weekend the Los Angeles LGBT Center broke ground and officially began construction! The new Anita May Rosenstein Campus is located on McCadden Place and Santa Monica Boulevard, and is designed by architecture firm Leong Leong. the article describes it as “a much-needed project that’s been a long time coming.” The center will connect with the group’s existing arts and education facility, and will support administrative offices, retail space, and cultural events space; all unique uses that proved a challenge in the building’s design. The architect acknowledges this challenge, stating that “In other words, the main challenge for the architects was to discover how all these different programs could co-exist in one structure. To do that, they had to redefine what it means to design for youth, gender and multigenerational living, among other variables.”
March 1, 2017
Now that our awards submissions are done, we have some new projects up on the Project page! Check them out, below:
February 13, 2017
Today Oculus was pleased to hear that the Google Venice Project, including the Google Landscape, has been awarded a Gold LEED rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. We recognize the importance of environmentally conscious design, so we are proud to have collaborated with both Gensler and Google to achieve the second highest level of LEED certification. Congratulations to the team!
LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a rigorous program created to promote more sustainable architectural and civil design, starting from the planning phase and continuing through construction to building maintenance and operation.