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

BluPrintPhilippines

Sketching Modernity 01: Ayala Museum

September 4

From Brutalism to Contemporary Modernism The Ayala Museum designed by the firm of Leandro V. Locsin Partners (LVLP) sits at the corner of Makati Avenue and Dela Rosa Street in Legaspi Village…

Architecture Civic Featured From the EIC

Read at BluPrint ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

Sketching Modernity 01: Ayala Museum

More from BluPrint on Uchi

PhilippinesArchitizer A+ Awards 2026: Four Approaches to Environmentally Responsive Design BluPrint

PhilippinesAgda Beach Villas: A Coastal Retreat in Three Blocks BluPrint

PhilippinesJia CURATED 2026: Nature Weave Arrives on Bali’s Pengembak Beach BluPrint

Philippines171 Residence: A Verdant Retreat Near A Vibrant City BluPrint