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

AD Middle East

New Arab Voices 2026: The New Generation of Creatives Rewriting Regional Contemporary Design

October 12

These are the seven rising talents who are shaping a new design frontier and thinking about what it means to create from, and for, the Arab world today

Architecture & Design Architecture & Design / Innovative Design

Read at AD Middle East ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

New Arab Voices 2026: The New Generation of Creatives Rewriting Regional Contemporary Design

More from AD Middle East on Uchi

Collectible Design Takes Centre Stage at This Interior Designer's Manhattan Penthouse AD Middle East

3 Khaleeji Leather Brands Bridging Bespoke Design With Nostalgia AD Middle East

Jeddah Tower vs Burj Khalifa: How Do the World’s Tallest Skyscrapers Compare? AD Middle East

Morocco Design Makes its Debut With a Three-Day Fair in Casablanca AD Middle East

From Rekha to Alia: 8 Times Bollywood Built Beautiful Worlds Around Iconic On-Screen Courtesans, Starting with Umrao Jaan AD Middle East

This Abu Dhabi Family Home Gives Five Very Different Personalities Common Ground AD Middle East