Irish architect Lorcan O'Herlihy, who founded California studio LOHA in 1994, has passed away aged 66.
O'Herlihy died from glioblastoma on 14 June in Los Angeles, his studio confirmed.
Born in Dublin in 1959, O'Herlihy studied at the Architectural Association in London and California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo.
In his early career, O'Herlihy worked in Connecticut for Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates and in New York for Steven Holl Architects and IM Pei and Partners, where he worked on the glass pyramid at the Musée du Louvre.
In 1994, O'Herlihy founded Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects (LOHA) in Los Angeles.
Designing single-family houses in its early years, it later became known for its multi-unit housing schemes and has completed numerous housing projects in the USA, largely in California.
One of LOHA's first examples of apartment buildings came in 2009 with the bright red Formosa 1140 housing project in West Hollywood, which contains 11 homes in its metal-clad walls.
LOHA also designed the Cloverdale 749 apartments in 2014 with corrugated metal wrapping its exterior, and the studio's Mariposa 1038 housing block, which features a sculptural interior courtyard and a monochrome facade, was named one of North America's best new housing of 2018 by the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
In 2016, O'Herlihy expanded LOHA with a branch in Detroit, which, among its completed projects in the city, includes the 23-building City Modern neighbourhood.
Among LOHA's multiple student housing projects in California are the stepped SL11024 development in 2015, the coastal UCSB San Joaquin Student Housing complex in 2019, the black-and-white Westgate 1515 housing in 2021 and the metal-clad Granville1500 development in 2022.
The studio has also designed social housing projects, notably the MLK1101 affordable housing and community centre in South Los Angeles, which was completed in 2019 to provide 26 housing units for previously homeless individuals.
Last year, LOHA used shipping containers to form the Isla Intersections development, which contains 54 supportive housing units, gardens and space for job training and creative programming.
In addition to housing, LOHA has designed a light-filled creative workspace for Nike and adapted an agricultural building into California's Sandi Simon Center for Dance.
As well as running LOHA, O'Herlihy was a professor at the USC School of Architecture in Los Angeles.
He was the recipient of numerous awards over his career, including the Maybeck Award and Lifetime Achievement Award from the AIA California, and the AIA Los Angeles Gold Medal.