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

Design Milk

Chloe Fineman Designs Her Life Like a Film Set

September 23

American actress and comedian Chloe Fineman has loved interior design since she was a child. It started when her family hired an interior decorator (Steven Shubel) to bring French flair—including…

Read at Design Milk ↗

One letter a week, in your inbox.

Latest

Chloe Fineman Designs Her Life Like a Film Set

More from Design Milk on Uchi

Patty Studios Looks to the South of France for Its Debut Rug Collection Design Milk

Americans Aren’t Afraid of Dark Paint—They Just Want It Warmer Design Milk

The Best Advent Calendars of 2026 for Design Lovers Design Milk

A 1978 Vancouver Special Gets a “Sophisti-Quirk” Reinvention Design Milk

Inside a New Venice Hotel With a Lighter Take on Venetian Grandeur Design Milk

7 South African Designers to Know From Maison&Objet 2026 Design Milk