July 1, 2021
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
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.
June 24, 2021
You heard it here first, Oculus Light Studio has just been awarded a prestigious IALD International Lighting Design Award of Merit for Amazon Nitro! We are truly honored, having spent over 5 years from beginning to end on this 850,000sf project for Vulcan and Amazon.
June 21, 2021
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
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!
May 27, 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 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.
May 5, 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.
April 16, 2021
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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Cedars-Sinai Ventana
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Hell’s Kitchen
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Georgia Aquarium Expansion
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Keck Medicine of USC
February 22, 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.
February 11, 2021
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.
January 26, 2021
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.
January 7, 2021
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.
December 8, 2020
It’s share-with-the-local-community month! Both of Oculus’ principals will be presenting at upcoming online IESLA events!
“What I Wish I Knew!”
As part of the Emerging Professional series, Scott Hatton, IES, LEED® AP, Principal at Oculus Light Studio will dwell on the question “While I am definitely still learning life’s lessons, what key advice would I give my past self?”
Besides this deep reflection, Scott will also discuss some of Oculus’ award-winning projects to help emerging professionals gain insight into the design process and the firm’s philosophies.
December 10th, 2020 at 6pm PST
The event is free and you can register here!
December 4, 2020
Just in time for winter weather, UGG recently opened its brand new flagship store located along 5th Avenue in New York City, and Oculus is pleased to have been a part of the new branding concept and design.
November 20, 2020
With the holidays rapidly approaching, Oculus is keeping a positive attitude for the new year. Here’s what each of us is thankful for this year:
October 23, 2020
After nearly three years of design and construction, it’s finally ready for the grand reveal, and Oculus couldn’t be more excited and proud to have been a part of it all! Today Georgia Aquarium, the largest aquarium in the Western Hemisphere, is opening its much anticipated and mysterious exhibit, SHARKS! Predators of the Deep! With 1.2M gallons of water and over 5 different species of sharks, this exhibit is sure to give thrills and chills, while helping educate its visitors on these misunderstood creatures.
October 9, 2020
Oculus Light Studio is in the midst of wrapping up work on the FLOR 401 Lofts, one of three recent developments funded by Skid Row’s Proposition HHH bond. We designed in collaboration with KoningEizenberg on these new affordable housing units, which will support individuals experiencing homelessness: half of the units are intended for homeless Veterans, and the other half for low-income households and/or those with special needs.
September 18, 2020
The new Mississippi Aquarium made a big splash with its recent grand opening, and Oculus is proud to have been a part of the design team for this 5.8 acre aquatic campus! Having dodged three hurricanes and being delayed due to COVID-19, the original opening date was postponed, but on the 15th anniversary of Katrina, the Governor opened the gates of the aquarium to the public.
August 27, 2020
It’s official! In 2021 WarnerMedia will be moving into the newly constructed office building located at the Culver City Metro Station. Oculus is thrilled to be the lighting designer for this over-$350M mixed-use complex at Ivy Station.
Note from Annabelle
August 11, 2020
By Annabelle Fung
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.
