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

Apartment Therapy

This Small Kitchen’s Makeover Takes Open Shelving to a Whole New Level

October 15

“We hated to spend any time in this space,” Sharon Exley says about her and her husband Peter’s kitchen.

Kitchens & bathrooms Home Projects before & after chicago featured ba

Read at Apartment Therapy ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

This Small Kitchen’s Makeover Takes Open Shelving to a Whole New Level

Related

Aerin Lauder Teams up with Kohler to Add Dutch Florals to Powder-Room Classics Architectural Digest

Kitchen of the Week: A London Architect’s Sky-Lit Compact Kitchen Remodelista

A London Family Home with a Pink deVOL Kitchen and Mint-Green Floorboards The Nordroom

Japanミラノで叶えた理想のキッチン――ヴェルヌ華子の心地よい食空間 Elle Decor Japan

5 Best Bath Towels That Feel Like Pure Bliss, Tested by AD (2026) Architectural Digest

Before & After: A Giant Fridge Sticker, Faux Beams, and 25 Days to Pull Off a Kitchen Reno Domino