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

The Social Hub submits a bold plan for Edinburgh

10.28

Hotel Designs The Social Hub submits a bold plan for Edinburgh The Social Hub submits a bold plan for Edinburgh The Social Hub has submitted plans to reimagine a long derelict site in Edinburgh as a…

Read at Hotel Designs ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

The Social Hub submits a bold plan for Edinburgh

More from Hotel Designs on Uchi

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

WeWantMore gives ibis Antwerp Centrum the space to reinvent itself Hotel Designs

Beyond the expected: exploring the creative potential of glass in hotel bathrooms Hotel Designs

New hotel openings – October 2026 Hotel Designs

Wilde Amsterdam – a new way to stay in the Dutch capital Hotel Designs

Experimental Roma – a French interpretation of Italy Hotel Designs