Whenever I see traditional wooden houses in Japan, I always feel that I would really like a house with an engawa.

If you don’t know what an engawa is, it’s sort of an outside corridor around a house. It’s still inside the house, and it’s still enclosed. Normally, it’s framed or glazed with glass panels or sliding doors.

So an engawa is definitely inside, but at the same time, it’s very much facing outside. The actual rooms are further towards the middle of the house, inside the engawa, so the engawa itself is sort of a liminal space between inside and outside. To me, this not-really-inside-not-really-outside space is very appealing.

I would love to be able to sit in an engawa. As far as I can see, they’re normally just about wide enough to fit a chair, so I’d love to sit in my engawa with a book, a cup of coffee, and take in the warmth of a nice, relaxing morning reading. Because it’s a relatively small but enclosed space, it really feels like it would perfectly capture the warmth of, let’s say, a sunny spring morning. Don’t you think that sounds so pleasant?

But at the minute, I can’t do any of what I’ve just written, because I don’t have an engawa. In fact, I don’t even have a house. I have an apartment, so my dream of an engawa is way off in the future, but it’s something I would like to aspire to.

Aspiring to an engawa. I wonder how many people have ever said that before.