there is a word in Japanese, ma, that means neither space nor time but the interval between. the pause between two notes. the distance between a table and a wall. emptiness that is not absence but part of the composition.
it is the most useful thing you can bring into a Bucharest flat.
why rooms end up crowded
our flats are not large. the natural response is to fill them: a cabinet against every free wall, something in every corner, because an empty corner looks like waste. the result is a room where the eye has nowhere to rest. you feel tired in it without knowing why.
emptiness is not lost space. it is what allows everything else to be seen.
what it looks like in practice
a wall is left bare so you can watch the light travel across it during the day. a sofa does not sit flush against the wall but a few centimetres off it, and the room immediately reads deeper. a bookcase is not filled to the last shelf: half-empty shelves read as a decision, packed ones read as storage.
space dictates, it does not decorate.
none of this costs more. often it costs less, because it means fewer objects, chosen more carefully.
the rule we use
before adding anything to a room we ask what that thing does for the person living there. if the answer is "it fills a gap", it does not go in. if the answer is "this is where he puts his keys when he gets home, every evening", then it has a place and a shape.
a good interior is not noticed. it is lived in.