A room is a decision about how you want to be tired at the end of the day.

I live in forty-eight square metres in Tokyo with one good chair and far too many bowls, so I have had to mean that. I trained as an architect and left to write, which my teachers took badly. Uchi (内) means inside, and it means home: the room you come back to. The palette comes after the tiredness. So does the name on the lamp.

This is where I keep what the world's rooms are doing. Around seventy sources, read in Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Italian, French and English: an apartment in Seoul, a house outside Taipei, a Copenhagen showroom seen from here rather than from Denmark. East first, because east is where I am sitting.

Each story is a headline, an excerpt of a few lines, one photograph and a link to whoever did the work. We never reprint the piece, and the photograph belongs to the person who took it. When a room was written up in Korean or Italian it stays in Korean or Italian here; the link takes you to the writer's own words.

I am not trying to be complete. I am trying to notice.

— Mio Tachibana, Tokyo

← Uchi Archive

Elle Decor

Chanel's New High Jewelry Collection Takes Its Cues From Coco's Paris Apartment

October 10

How volumes on a bookshelf, botanicals in a Riviera villa, and the mosaics of a French abbey find themselves in a necklace.

Read at Elle Decor ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

Chanel's New High Jewelry Collection Takes Its Cues From Coco's Paris Apartment

More from Elle Decor on Uchi

9 Champagne Coupes to Spice Up Any Bar Cart Elle Decor

On the Couch with Gucci Westman Elle Decor

How a Madrid Apartment Got the History It Always Deserved Elle Decor

An Exclusive Look Inside Barack and Michelle Obama’s Private Offices Elle Decor

5 Paint Color Trends to Try for Fall Elle Decor

How Two Friends Turned a Timeworn Connecticut Garage Into a Vintage-Inspired Barnhouse Elle Decor