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.

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April 13, 2022

March 8, 2022

International Women’s Day 2022: #BreakTheBias

By Likhitha Rangaswamy

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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August 27, 2021

My Internship at Oculus

By Elizabeth Ellinger

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!

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August 9, 2021

IES Illuminations Awards 2021

IES just announced their list of Illumination Merit Award Recipients and… drum roll please… Oculus has won 3 of these awards!

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July 1, 2021

Oculus Wins Best of Practice Award in the West!

Oculus Light Studio is proud to announce that we’ve won Architect Newspaper’s Best of Practice Award for Lighting Designer in the West! It’s a privilege to be in the company of the great design firms who have received this award this year and especially our clients and collaborators.

We are honored to be chosen for this award from amongst all of our fellow creative lighting design firms located in 13 states along the West Coast of the United States. And we look forward to continuing to deliver even more innovative and award-winning work as we near our 10-year anniversary.

Thanks to the Architect’s Newspaper for this award, and thank you to our clients, manufacturers and reps, and our talented, hardworking team!

June 26, 2021

St. Louis Aquarium Wins IES Lumen West Award!

Oculus is honored to receive an IES Lumen West Award of Merit for the new St. Louis Aquarium located in a historic train station, where guests travel from the “grand hall”, to river exhibits, to the ocean surface and into the depths. The lighting design brings this journey to life, transitioning from warm colors mimicking dappled sunlight over river exhibits, to the ocean tanks where bluer tones evoke the feel of being deep in the ocean.
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June 24, 2021

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!

June 10, 2021

Pasadena’s New Family Friendly Restaurant

Located in Old Pasadena, Agnes Restaurant & Cheesery opened their doors last week for the grand opening! Named after the executive’s chef’s own grandmother, the restaurant was inspired by and envisioned as a warm, family-style gathering place. It’s clear the chef partners and owners truly care about how their restaurant looks and feels, and Oculus played a big part in making sure all of the details were just right!

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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.

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May 5, 2021

Oculus Presentation at LightFair 2021

Oculus Principal Scott Hatton will be presenting at LightFair in New York this fall! His talk titled “Using Light to Create Natural Environments and Powerful Human Experiences: A Case Study of Three Aquarium Projects”, will take place on October 28th from 8:30am-9:30am (Session Code: L21EL2; check out the conference schedule here).

Join us on a journey through the recently completed St. Louis Aquarium, Mississippi Aquarium, and the “SHARKS! Predators of the Deep” exhibit at the Georgia Aquarium. These examples will show how the latest lighting and control technologies were used to create a variety of natural environments for the animals, and an experiential journey for humans.

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April 16, 2021

More Recently Completed Projects!

This past year has had its ups and downs, and some of those “ups” were completions of projects that we were excited to see come to life! Oculus has recently added more projects to our website that have been completed in 2020, including two new healthcare facilities with a hospitality feel, a well known TV-show-turned-restaurant, and an aquarium expansion that added a 1-million gallon shark tank as well as a new 40′-long jellyfish tank illuminated exclusively with color-changing lighting.

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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→

February 11, 2021

Citizen Public Market

Downtown Culver City, CA is starting to get quite a facelift, especially with Amazon moving into their new offices at Culver Steps and at Culver Studios (both Oculus projects incidentally!).   Now a new little market has come to light in a small historic building right across from all of the office action.

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January 26, 2021

Oculus Projects Pushing Ahead

Despite challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, construction is still moving forward on many of Oculus’s projects. San Pedro Public Market is one of them: this redevelopment of the seaside plaza originally constructed in 1962 as “Ports O’ Call Village”, is underway and expected to be completed next year.

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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.

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