Sejima received the Kenneth F. Brown Award from the University of Hawai'i for the Saishunkan Seiyaku Women's Dormitory.
On November 10, 1995, Kazuyo Sejima received the Kenneth F. Brown Asia Pacific Culture and Architecture Design Award, presented by the University of Hawai'i, for her design of the Saishunkan Seiyaku Women's Dormitory in Kumamoto, Japan.
This award recognizes architectural excellence within the Asia-Pacific region, honoring projects that thoughtfully engage with cultural context while advancing contemporary design practice. The Saishunkan Seiyaku Women's Dormitory, one of Sejima's notable early independent projects, exemplified her signature approach to communal living spaces—prioritizing individual privacy alongside opportunities for social interaction through innovative spatial planning.
The dormitory's design reflected Sejima's broader interest in rethinking domestic and communal architecture for contemporary social needs, particularly as it related to women's living spaces, a subject with personal resonance given her position as one of few prominent women architects in Japan at the time.
This award came in the same year that Sejima co-founded SANAA with Ryue Nishizawa, marking a significant transitional moment in her career from independent practice toward the internationally acclaimed partnership that would eventually earn the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2010.