Following a diagnosis of glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumour, late last year, he passed away on June 14.

Born in Dublin in 1959, Lorcan O’Herlihy moved to Los Angeles as a toddler with his film-star family. (His father, who also studied architecture, was the Oscar-nominated actor Dan O’Herlihy.)

Lorcan returned to Dublin for school before studying architecture at the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and London’s Architectural Association. He went on to work for Kevin Roche and I.M. Pei, including on the Louvre expansion and after stints with Steven Holl, he founded LOHA in Los Angeles in 1994.

In 2016, Lorcan opened a second office in Detroit to support the city’s innovative ground-up regeneration. In late March, LOHA announced that it was embracing a collective ownership model – a fitting next step for a practice with more than 100 projects across three continents and more than 200 awards, including the AIA California Council’s Distinguished Practice Award. At the time Lorcan said: “We’ve built a creative, committed team that is dedicated to doing great work. It’s important to me that ownership reflects the people who drive the studio forward every day.”

The winning scheme at WAF, Isla Intersections – presented by LOHA director Ghazal Khezri and associate Geoffrey Sorrell in Miami in November 2025 – occupies a tight triangle alongside a vast motorway interchange in South LA. It provides 54 homes for homeless people, including ten for army veterans, in an artful arrangement of stacked shipping containers painted crisp white. Peter Cook, on the supercrit jury, ‘loved it.’ There was much to love about Lorcan’s work, and Lorcan himself. Ghazal described him as a great friend as well as colleague and mentor. He’ll be remembered by the profession and his clients for designing innovative affordable and social housing, brilliant one-off homes and buildings and places with genuine civic value.