Irhana Šehovic is an architect, sustainability strategist and activist from Sarajevo, currently living in Oslo. She started her architectural education in Sarajevo, made stops in Barcelona and Stuttgart, to finally attain a master’s degree at the NTNU in Trondheim. Discovering distinct cultures, spaces and customs intrigues and fascinates her, hence her inability to stay in one spot.
She has worked with UN Habitat in China exploring urban-rural connections and methods for revival of the countryside and its transformation. Through VVITA project, she has taken part in an applied studies of rural spontaneous heritages in both, Norway and Italy, creating strategies for sensible redevelopment approaches. She has contributed to the Parangole magazine challenging ideas of urbanization, mobility and migration around the globe.
She works across countries and cultures. In Norway, before joining her current architectural position at DARK Arkitekter, she worked with Urban-Think Tank on urban competitions with focus on transformation, revival and new life in existing surroundings. Irhana remained involved in the architectural scene of Bosnia and Herzegovina and has since 2014 been part of LIFT Spatial Initiatives, a non-profit non-governmental organisation that aims to educate local communities on architecture, urbanism and design. Since 2019 she has been managing various projects within the organization, among which two of its biggest: architectural biennial Days of Architecture and LINA.
Alongside architect and collegue Dunja Krvavac, she has developed a series of joint Days of architecture and LINA European architecture platform projects exploring the topic of Sarajevo public spaces, inclusion and feminist perspectives: (UN)CONTEXT_Dissecting the layers- Sarajevo residency workshop and exhibition, a project titled BATTLE FOR RESILLIENCE as a collaboration with the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo, ‘Buone Nuove: Women Changing Architecture’ with MAXXI Rome. In 2023 Irhana co-authored the first architectural guide for Sarajevo published by DOM publishers.