Uchi 内 /

Scandinavia Standard

6 stories

The loneliness no one warns you about in retirement — and why filling your calendar isn’t the same as feeling connected

Scandinavia StandardThe loneliness no one warns you about in retirement — and why filling your calendar isn’t the same as feeling connected A while ago, I found myself standing in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, wondering who I would talk to that day. Not whether I had anything to do. I had plenty to do. There were emails waiting, an article half-written,

A Stanford psychologist spent a year in Tromsø, where the sun disappears for two months each winter, then surveyed Norwegians from Oslo to Svalbard. The farther north they lived, the more positively they viewed winter—and those with the warmest attitudes toward the cold also reported the greatest life satisfaction.

Scandinavia StandardA Stanford psychologist spent a year in Tromsø, where the sun disappears for two months each winter, then surveyed Norwegians from Oslo to Svalbard. The farther north they lived, the more positively they viewed winter—and those with the warmest attitudes toward the cold also reported the greatest life satisfaction. A Norwegian survey found that warmer attitudes to winter tracked both northern latitude and greater wellbeing, but its cross-sectional design leaves cause and effect unresolved.

A 2024 PNAS study surveyed 2,966 people across 19 Indigenous and local communities worldwide and found average life satisfaction comparable to wealthy nations—even though 36 per cent of households received no cash income during the study period.

Scandinavia StandardA 2024 PNAS study surveyed 2,966 people across 19 Indigenous and local communities worldwide and found average life satisfaction comparable to wealthy nations—even though 36 per cent of households received no cash income during the study period. A global survey found high life satisfaction in many nature-dependent communities with very low cash incomes, widening the evidence on how human wellbeing can be supported.

Iceland’s Blue Lagoon is the runoff pond of the Svartsengi geothermal plant, which began dumping hot brine on a lava field in 1976 expecting it to drain away, and the silica in the cooling water sealed the porous rock instead, caulking the basin of the country’s most visited attraction

Scandinavia StandardIceland’s Blue Lagoon is the runoff pond of the Svartsengi geothermal plant, which began dumping hot brine on a lava field in 1976 expecting it to drain away, and the silica in the cooling water sealed the porous rock instead, caulking the basin of the country’s most visited attraction Nobody designed the Blue Lagoon. That is the detail the spa’s serene marketing photographs, all steam and milky turquoise against black rock, politely decline to mention. Iceland’s most famous attraction, a place that se

In 1956, an IKEA employee named Gillis Lundgren was trying to fit a table into his car after a catalogue photo shoot, and it wouldn’t go in — so he removed the legs, laid them beside the tabletop, and by accident sparked the flat-pack furniture format that would eventually define the entire company

Scandinavia StandardIn 1956, an IKEA employee named Gillis Lundgren was trying to fit a table into his car after a catalogue photo shoot, and it wouldn’t go in — so he removed the legs, laid them beside the tabletop, and by accident sparked the flat-pack furniture format that would eventually define the entire company A man in a small town in southern Sweden, holding a leaf-shaped side table and a set of car keys, doing the mental math that anyone who has ever moved house knows too well. The table won’t go in the car. The angles are w

In Sweden, Friday evenings follow an unofficial national script so consistent it has its own word — fredagsmys, or Friday cosiness — built around tacos or crisps, dimmed lights, and a couch, and the ritual is common enough that Swedish supermarkets plan entire product lines around it

Scandinavia StandardIn Sweden, Friday evenings follow an unofficial national script so consistent it has its own word — fredagsmys, or Friday cosiness — built around tacos or crisps, dimmed lights, and a couch, and the ritual is common enough that Swedish supermarkets plan entire product lines around it An ordinary Friday night can become a national ritual. Not a holiday, not a festival, nothing marked on the calendar. Just the end of the working week, given its own familiar script. Sweden even has a word for it: fredag

Asia now

アジアの今 · What's on view, the homes each region is looking at this week, and what its press is covering — in English

On view

Homes this week the newest rooms from the region's press

The wire the region's press, translated

How Asia lives in 2026 from the region's own trend reports

Sources

Fetched every three hours, linked to the original

About

Uchi (内) is a magazine, a radar and a diary about interiors and the way people live, kept from Tokyo for readers everywhere.

Uchi means inside, and it means home: the room you return to. A magazine, because every week one idea about living deserves to be read slowly. A radar, because we count what the homes and studios of the world are talking about right now — light, timber, colour, small rooms, the kitchen — and show it as it moves. A diary, because a seal is set each day in that day's colour, and the days add up.

We look east first. Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Taipei, Hanoi, Bangkok, then Copenhagen, Milan and New York: the apartments, houses, cafés and hotels where interiors are actually being decided. Everything here links back to the people who made it; the images belong to their authors.

Uchi will keep changing: new sources, new signals, a little better each week, never finished. If a room here made you want to move a chair, that is enough.

Thank you for reading. ありがとうございます。