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

Wallpaper*

Pack it up and pack it in with Rimowa’s two new suitcase colourways

October 5

Rimowa’s ‘Groove’ and ‘Essential’ suitcases are a functional yet beautiful travel statement for any jetsetter.

Read at Wallpaper* ↗

One letter a week, in your inbox.

Latest

Pack it up and pack it in with Rimowa’s two new suitcase colourways

More from Wallpaper* on Uchi

‘You cannot manufacture what a place means culturally’: Silencio founder Arnaud Frisch on 15 years of cinematic nights out Wallpaper*

Vantieghem Talebi’s timber ‘House of Cards’ plays with a familiar form Wallpaper*

Dreaming of the desert? This book has you covered, from modernist to adobe architecture Wallpaper*

A London workspace built around the warmth of the ‘hearth’ – not just for the reasons you’d think Wallpaper*

A monograph on the life and work of architect Rick Mather explores his approach and impact Wallpaper*

Bisila Noha’s ceramics are informed by culture, community and feminism Wallpaper*