09 Sep 26
Luci announces today the opening of its first international studio in London, marking a significant milestone for the practice.
Founded in Chicago in 2011, Luci has grown strategically in cities recognized as centers of culture and design innovation, expanding to Seattle and New York over the past decade. London marks the practice's next step as its first studio outside the U.S. The new studio brings Luci closer to clients, collaborators, and cultural communities throughout Europe while creating a base for the practice’s continued international growth.
“London is an important next chapter for Luci, but this is about much more than opening another office,” said Founder and CEO, AJ Goehle. “We have always believed that the best experiences are shaped by different perspectives. Establishing a locally led team in London allows us to become part of an extraordinary creative and cultural community while bringing new perspectives to Luci as a whole. We want our international growth to strengthen our work, not simply expand our footprint.”
The Luci London studio will be led by Josh Kirk and Thomas Tzortzi as Co-Principals and Creative Directors, with complementary expertise in spatial, narrative, and experience design. Kirk has spent more than a decade creating narrative-driven exhibitions and immersive experiences for the museum, heritage, and brand sectors. Tzortzi brings more than a decade as a lead designer, combining bold spatial thinking with deep research at the masterplan scale. Together, they have collaborated on museums, cultural destinations, and visitor experiences across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. James Alexander joins as Chairman after decades as chief executive of Event Communications, a global leader that helped shape the museum and visitor attraction industry. The founding design team is rounded out by Alice Penner and Becca Warren, each with demonstrated expertise in visual and dimensional design.
The London team will build upon Luci’s outcome-driven approach to experience design. Rather than starting with a fixed idea of what the space should be, Luci starts by asking what an institution wants visitors to feel, question, or carry forward from an experience.
“The next generation of international museums and visitor experiences will succeed by responding to their context and their visitors in a more intimate, personal way,” said Josh. “That means bringing audiences and our clients into the process before the ideas are fixed. We aim to create experiences that connect at an emotional level and empower a visitor's transformation from passive recipients to active participants and co-creators of meaning.”
Luci’s multidisciplinary teams work closely with clients, communities, and subject-matter experts to bring specialized knowledge into the creative process. Depending on the project, that can mean working with historians, scientists, educators, cultural advisers, medical professionals, psychologists, and other specialists to better understand how different audiences learn, engage, and experience a space.
That approach reflects Luci’s belief that successful experience design should be measured not simply by what is built, but by what visitors take with them.
“Our role is not to arrive with the answer already formed,” said Thomas. “The answer begins with the place and the people who know it. Our job is to listen closely, establish a clear creative framework, and turn those perspectives into an experience that could belong nowhere else.”
Josh and Thomas bring an established and extensive international portfolio to Luci, including the Oman Across Ages Museum, RAF Museum, Museum MACAN, The Raid for the National Museum of Denmark, Shenzhen Natural History Museum, and Home of Carlsberg in Copenhagen.
“Great creative work requires us to continually challenge our own assumptions,” said Matthew McNerney, Chief Creative Officer of Luci. “London gives us another vantage point. Josh, Thomas and their team bring perspectives and experiences that will influence how we think across the entire practice, just as Luci’s existing teams bring their own expertise to the work. That exchange is exactly what we want.”
That exchange is already visible in the range of work Luci carries into London — from the Holocaust Museum Boston to the California Science Center to Harley-Davidson — each shaped by the same instinct: start with what an institution wants visitors to carry forward, not with a fixed idea of the space.
Explore Luci's work or get in touch to talk with the London team.
New Perspectives for New Times
