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

Interni

Who will inhabit the empty houses?

September 8

Cities preserve a silent heritage of unused buildings, while the demand for affordable housing, local services, and new models of coexistence is growing.

Read at Interni ↗

One letter a week, in your inbox.

Latest

Who will inhabit the empty houses?

More from Interni on Uchi

Paris Design Week: What to Expect and What to Do in the City Interni

Online courses to learn how to decorate your home (and a discount code for everyone) Interni

When the project embraces the concept of longevity Interni

Pardo 43, the design that evolves Interni

Baglietto Andala: an architecture project Interni

Sanlorenzo SHE: a heart in tradition, a vision for the future Interni