Bio:

Saroash Haider is an aspiring architect and visual artist who focuses on designing and creating equitable, diverse, and inclusive spaces, more specifically for queer communities. His identity as a queer South Asian has come with many challenges, but also adds nuance to how he perceives art, space, and architecture. With that, Saroash’s journey as a drag entertainer in Toronto as "Yasmen Lovegood" has taught and given him a platform to express and advocate for EDI beyond the academic and professional workplace.

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How did you first learn about architecture and when did you decide that built environment profession was an area of interest for you?

Driven by my creativity and curiosity from a young age, I always knew that I had to build a platform that would serve communities at large. Though many architects share this experience, for me, it became carving a new and possibly unconventional path.

 

What do you do?

Before anything, I'm an advocate for the voices that are often unheard or dismissed. My time as a student, young professional, and a drag artist, has given me a variety of opportunities to practice and enforce EDI in all areas of my professional work.

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What excites you in the work you do?

One of the most exciting parts about the work I do is building community. My biggest takeaways from my experiences is that without community, you're simply just creating in the absence of people who can give your work perspective, nuance, and; meaning.

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Who or what inspires you professionally?

My chosen family, specifically my 'Drag Mother' (Madee Lovegood/Matthew) has continuously inspired me. As an artist I had to learn how to be honest with myself before I could create for communities at large, and she taught me the importance of that.

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What is your proudest professional accomplishment or achievement?

My proudest professional achievement has been using my thesis as a tool to create a movement. Drags to Riches was always about attitudes; an approach to architecture, rather than the final physical product. Architecture void of truths and absolutes.

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Featured Project Name: 

Drags to Riches

 

Featured Project Location: 

Unbuilt

 

Featured Project Completion Date: 

2026

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Role in Featured Project: 

Designer / Director

 

Featured Project Description:

Drags to Riches interrogates the relationship between queer performance and the built world, critiquing its inability to reimagine beyond its current heteronormative frameworks. In an attempt to dismantle these frameworks, Drag becomes the catalyst through which Architecture may be enriched with ambiguity. Where gender is performed, abstracted, and able to appropriate itself, Architecture can similarly appropriate itself to approach a more infinite, boundless, and liminal interpretation of space.

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Photography Credit:

Saroash Haider