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

Nihal: porcelain finds its place in the bathroom

10.30

Hotel Designs Nihal: porcelain finds its place in the bathroom Nihal: porcelain finds its place in the bathroom Eighteen months in development, Nihal sees French fittings specialist THG Paris and…

Kitchens & bathrooms

Read at Hotel Designs ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

Nihal: porcelain finds its place in the bathroom

Related

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

Japanバスルームの最新デザインが集結！国内外14社による体験型イベント「THE BATHROOM PROJECT 2026」が開催 Modern Living

61 small kitchen ideas from the House & Garden archive House & Garden

Japanキレイに見えて実は雑菌だらけ。見落としがちなキッチンの汚れスポット7 Elle Decor Japan

Green Bathrooms: The Most Refined Design Ideas for 2027, From Sage to Olive Green Archiproducts

11 IKEA Kitchen Finds Designers Swear By in Their Own Homes House Beautiful