An architect with Nikken Sekkei's Activity Design lab, Sari Kaede, 28, came out as a transgender woman in 2017. For the past four years she has designed buildings and worked as a spokesperson for the LGBTQ community in Japan. She hopes to help other young people here who may be struggling with gender identification, and to that end she agreed to be the focus of a documentary about her life titled "You Decide.," which opens June 19 in select cinemas.
1. Did you always want to be an architect? When I was 8 years old, I shared a room with my sister. I was very interested in the fliers for new condos and apartment buildings that were slipped into our mailbox, because I was hankering for a space of my own and wanted some ideas for my dream home.
The floor plans were fascinating by themselves, so I would copy these out in my sketchbook. My parents told me that drafting floor plans is actually part of a profession, and that people got paid to do it. I was astonished. I thought, "Wow, if only I could do this as a job!"