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

Inside LA Design Week/end 2026: A City of Creative Connections

11.05

When New Yorkers land in Los Angeles, the first thing that rattles them is, “Where is everyone?” Unlike the bustling life on Manhattan sidewalks, people in LA tend to stay in their bubbles.

Read at Design Milk ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

Inside LA Design Week/end 2026: A City of Creative Connections

More from Design Milk on Uchi

2027 Colors of the Year: The Shades Defining Design Design Milk

A Modern Seattle Floating Home Takes Coastal Living to New Heights Design Milk

SURROUND Presents: Why Good Product Design Requires More Than a Good Idea Design Milk

Christina Bowlby Finds Inspiration Close to Home for Bentley Mills Design Milk

Target Soho Redesign Brings NYC Streetscapes Indoors Design Milk

Mestiz Installs Monumental Día de Muertos Altar in NYC Design Milk