For hundreds of millions of people all over the world, the idea of clearly seeing the landscape, people and details around them is unfamiliar. Eye care and corrective lenses are an expense many people simply cannot afford, and their lives are affected each day by their poor vision.
OneSight, a global vision care nonprofit sponsored by Luxottica, is working to change the lives of such individuals. The organization helps to provide eye exams and glasses to those in need all around the world. With such a massive undertaking, it became crucial for the organization to have a space that suitably ties in the connection OneSight has with LensCrafters and Sunglasses Hut, while showcasing the mission and goals of the charity.
“We wanted to create a new space with brand attribution,” says Amanda Dunn, communications manager for OneSight. “OneSight was born in a LensCrafter store and originally just worked with the local community.” To reflect this, Luxottica hired ArchitectsPlus to design a space that incorporated all three businesses in with the nonprofit’s space; Sunglass Hut, LensCrafters and OneSight all share one location that flows together seamlessly and represents all the aspects of vision needs.
“This was a really interesting project for us because this is the only combined Sunglass Hut and LensCrafters store in the world,” says Nora Wiley, vice president of ArchitectsPlus. “It was a challenge to figure out how to unite these two brands that serve different customers and have different messaging under one roof inside the Luxottica North American corporate headquarters in Mason, Ohio.”
Regardless of the design challenges, the flow of the space works perfectly and displays OneSight’s branding and mission. “The new area is very natural,” says Dunn. The space, which is connected to LensCrafters and Sunglass Hut, is open and provides a nice flow for customers to move throughout the areas.
“Through conversation in planning, the team felt strongly that the best way to unite the two dynamic spaces was with the inclusion of a space dedicated to OneSight,” says Wiley. With the addition of this space, the charity has a small display piece that shows off what the organization does for communities around the world.
Founded a little more than 25 years ago, the roots of the organization stemmed from a desire to bring sight to underserved local neighborhoods. “We collected old glasses to redistribute throughout the community,” says Dunn. “But then Luxottica merged three different charities that were all doing variations of a similar thing into the OneSight organization.”
Now the organization provides eye exams and glasses to people throughout local communities and the rest of the world. Establishing temporary clinics, the organization brings physicians to areas of great need to provide exams and the distribution of corrective lenses in an effort to help these areas create a sustainable infrastructure. “We’re also working to create a permanent improvement, while teaching lo- cals a trade in optics,” says Dunn. The organization utilizes volunteers all over the globe for these tasks, and is able to mobilize a considerable amount of support from companies partnered with Luxottica.
ArchitectsPlus is located at 10816 Millington Court, Cincinnati, OH 45242. You can reach them at 513.984.1070 or visit their website at www.architectsplus.com.
OneSight headquarters is located at 4000 Luxottica Place, Mason, OH 45040. You can reach them at 888.935.4589, by email at info@onesight.org, or visit their website at www.onesight.org.