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

Hotel Designs

Mereshi Safari Camp: a Serengeti escape, made in Tanzania

10.30

Hotel Designs Mereshi Safari Camp: a Serengeti escape, made in Tanzania Mereshi Safari Camp: a Serengeti escape, made in Tanzania Opening in November 2026 near the Fort Ikoma Gate, Delaware…

Read at Hotel Designs ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

Mereshi Safari Camp: a Serengeti escape, made in Tanzania

More from Hotel Designs on Uchi

Nihal: porcelain finds its place in the bathroom Hotel Designs

In conversation with: Fitzroy of London on the Oxford Doc M Pack Hotel Designs

Hotel review: a daydream come true at Schlosshotel Fiss Hotel Designs

Where Cape Town’s working harbour meets Neri&Hu’s minimalist vision Hotel Designs

The Social Hub submits a bold plan for Edinburgh Hotel Designs

St. James’ Court, A Taj Hotel – the reimagined public areas by Conran and Partners Hotel Designs