October 18, 2017

Riley Rose is a Candy-Colored Retail Dreamland

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.”

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October 4, 2017

Mississippi Aquarium, Already Making a Splash!

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

September 13, 2017

September 8, 2017

Oculus’ Summer Travels

Among all the deadlines, and the visiting interns, it still was an eventful summer for the Oculus team outside of the studio! Many of us were able to do a bit of traveling, whether going abroad or venturing out on weekend camping excursions. As the season is coming to a close, we thought it would be nice to take a look back and share some of the unique things that each of us did. We hope you had a wonderful summer as well!


ARCHIT

As part of his family’s experimental “visit a country a year” plan, Archit and family took a trip to Chile. A country with many landscapes, they were able to catch some contemporary architecture in Santiago, visit the Andes Mountains for some August skiing, see the the stark visuals of the Atacama desert with the Valle de La Luna (Moon Valley) and view the colorful murals of the ocean-side town of Valparaiso. Exceptionally cool to him was the Tropic of Capricorn (nerd!).

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August 31, 2017

August 22, 2017

August 14, 2017

More on REI’s Flagship Store in Washington, DC

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!

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July 27, 2017

Oculus Outing to Petersen Automotive Museum and Drago Ristorante

The Oculus Light Studio Team went on our summer outing to the Petersen Automotive Museum.  Of course, being the architectural lighting designers we are, there was plenty of discussion over the lighting installation and architecture of the museum. Overall, everyone enjoyed admiring the collections of vintage cars and Scott even got to play a racing game!

Hungry from our museum exploration, we finished the afternoon by dining at the newly constructed Drago Ristorante housed within the museum.  The interior design of the restaurant happens to be a hospitality project that Oculus recently won a Calibre Design Award for and it was nice to finally enjoy a delicious meal there.

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July 11, 2017

Oculus Light Studio Wins Big at 2017 Lumen West Awards!

It was a fun and exciting night at the annual Lumen West Awards and Dinner, put on by the Los Angeles and Orange County Sections of the Illuminated Engineering Society. This year’s event took place at the historic Biltmore Hotel and it created the perfect atmosphere for all the festivities of the night which included a cocktail hour, the award’s dinner and an after-party with a live band. The Oculus team enjoyed cheering on and socializing with our colleagues and friends throughout the event!

Oculus was one of the big winners of the night, taking home an Award of Excellence for Boston Consulting Group and three Lumen West Awards of Merit for interior lighting design for The Bloc, Officine Brera, and Creative Tech Hub Backlot.

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June 30, 2017

June 24, 2017

Oculus Wins 4 Awards at 2017 Lumen West!

We are happy and honored to announce that Oculus Light Studio was a recipient of four awards at the 2017 Lumen West Awards Dinner on Saturday, June 24, 2017.  The Illuminating Engineering Society of LA and Orange County (IESLA & IESOC)  yearly hosts this big awards night for the best of Southern California lighting design.

Award of Excellence for Boston Consulting Group
Award of Merit for Creative Tech Hub Backlot Landscape
Award of Merit for Officine Brera
Award of Merit for The Bloc

BCG3Google-Backlot-Landscape-largerbloc1

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June 9, 2017

May 26, 2017

Drago Peterson Wins at 2017 Calibre Interior Design Awards!

International Interior Design Association Southern California Chapter hosted their 2017 Calibre Design Awards on Friday, May 19th, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. We are happy to announce that our lighting design project, Drago Peterson, won in the Hospitality Category at the Gala Event! Congratulations to Felderman Keatinge + Associates, including Stanley, Nancy and Brian, and special thanks for including us as part of the design team.

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May 18, 2017

Just Woonerful!

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.

May 10, 2017

April 10, 2017

Four Oculus Projects Win Shop! 2017 Design Awards

We are proud to announce that Oculus Light Studio has not one but FOUR projects that have been recognized with awards in the 46th Shop! Retail Environments 2017 Design Awards!  Per their website, “The Shop! Awards Competitions recognize the best new designs in retail environments and experienes.  Considered by many as the “academy Awards” of the retail design and brand marketing industries, we offer four award programs, each celebrating a different area of design expertise.”

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April 4, 2017

We Are Hiring!!

Oculus is Hiring a Creative Office Manager / Marketing Coordinator! This position is full time (40 hours/week), and we are looking to hire ASAP!

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March 30, 2017

Grand Opening of RDC and Studio One Eleven Office

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.

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March 20, 2017

Architizer on Los Angeles LGBT Center

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.”

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