LOHA Founder Lorcan O’Herlihy Dies At 66
Within the tightly knit architecture and design community of Los Angeles are a few folks needing only first names for identification: Joey (Shimoda); Hagy (Belzberg); Clive (Wilkinson); Benny (Chan); Neil (Denari), and, of course, Lorcan (O’Herlihy). The beloved Dublin-born architect with international provenance in education, practice, and life experience died at 66 from glioblastoma.
“I always grew up in cities,” O’Herlihy told us as prologue to his mantra: “We embrace architecture as a social act. It can enliven a community.” Thus, he and LOHA [Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects], his Los Angeles-based namesake firm with a subsequent office in Detroit, is best known for housing. Multi-family, infill, and affordable units particularly confronting Los Angeles’s “rampant housing crisis.” Efforts are laudatory, garnering more than 100 awards. Among them are Interior Design Best of Year Awards-winners. The 2022 citation for infill housing honored a tight configuration of five houses with a distinct translucent A-frame vibe occupying an urban lot. In 2024, Peace4Kids, a non-profit project comprising 20 acres as a nature retreat for youth in foster care was an on-the-boards finalist.
Additional standouts in the L.A. landscape include: Isla Intersections, a 54-unit arrangement of affordable, pre-fabricated modular units at the intersection of the busy 110 and 105 freeways; Mariposa 1038, a white-cube composition in Koreatown; and Formosa 1140, a staggered and stacked assemblage of vibrant red and orange units, some shipping crates, in West Hollywood.
A painter and sculptor as well as architect, O’Herlihy parlayed his love of the arts into his work. His Sandi Simon Center for Dance at Chapman University was a 2025 AIA National Award winner for excellence in interiors. Detroit’s Little Village, cited by Time as one of The World’s Greatest Places of 2025, is a vast cultural arts center with all it entails: a gallery, performance venue, library, restaurant, skate park, sculpture garden and art-centric B+B on a 3 ½-acre site. LOHA participated in the 2025 Venice Biennale with “The Angelino Porch, Six Spaces Shaping L.A.’s Affordable Housing.”
The son of film actor Dan O’Herlihy (also a trained architect), Lorcan O’Herlihy credited his father for early experiences in London, Rome, and Madrid. He returned to SoCal for studies at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, followed by the Architectural Association in London. He worked for Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates on the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I.M. Pei and Partners on the Louvre Pyramid, and Steven Holl Architects before establishing his own practice in 1994. He was named a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 2009 and was recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award from AIA California. He leaves his wife Leila, their twin sons Daire and Darcy, and his professional studio family at LOHA.
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