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

est living

First Light: Super Nova Sky Villa by State of Craft

10.01

A penthouse of scale and prestige at One Sydney Harbour finds itself anchored by a strong, persuasive materiality in direct response to the natural beauty found in its harbour setting.

Craft & handmade

Read at est living ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

First Light: Super Nova Sky Villa by State of Craft

Related

JapanAZUMA FARM Koiwai, a Private Forest Sauna Crafted for the Art of Bathing Pen

A lofty home on a quiet mews, expertly reimagined by a textile designer The Modern House Journal

Livingceramics Openhouse

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

Rumah Rubah by Maximilian Jencquel: Where Japanese Restraint Meets Balinese Craft Yatzer

The Crafted Home: the wobbly world of designer Tessa Silva The Modern House Journal