Heritage, Reimagined
Updated: Jul 1
How Asian homes are blending cultural roots with modern fluidity in 2026 and beyond
June, 2026
Cha Collective
A home is never simply a shelter from the elements. The history and climate of the country, the shape of its society, the structure of family, and a people’s aesthetic sensibility; a “home” is a mirror reflecting all of these. Across Asia in recent years, accelerating urbanisation, more time spent at home during the pandemic, and the spread of global interior trends through social media have combined to fundamentally shift how people think about “home.”
In our recent studies at Cha Collective, we spoke with high‑end consumers and interior design experts across Japan, China and Vietnam to understand how people think about and aspire to “home.” While there is a clear admiration for European interior aesthetics, each market reveals its own rich history and philosophy that shape how home is imagined and lived.
Japan: The Culture of Floor-based Living and a Return to Nature
Japan’s history of dwelling cannot be separated from Yukaza (床座), the distinctive custom of living life at floor level. The culture of timber flooring that emerged in the Yayoi period evolved into the tatami mat of the Heian period, and over centuries, “living close to the floor” shaped the Japanese sense of the body and of space itself. The layout philosophy of samurai-era residences, which placed the Zashiki, a formal tatami reception room, at the top of the household hierarchy, evolved after the Meiji era into homes centred around the Chanoma and Ima (living rooms). Whether entertaining guests or relaxing as a family, the custom of sitting directly on tatami never disappeared. Even now, when wood flooring and chair-based living have become the norm, many people still build a Koagari, a tatami platform raised about 30-40cm above floor level, often with storage built into the riser, deliberately creating “a place where it’s fine to sprawl on the floor.” This can be read as a fusion of an enduring Japanese sensibility for floor-based living with the very practical need to maximise storage within compact homes.
Eclecticism of materials is one of the most frequently cited elements of an ideal interior in Japan. Beyond conventional wood and concrete, more people are seeking to combine natural materials with distinct character such as plaster, brick, tile and glass, which are often seen in the European interior, especially Scandinavian. This likely reflects not only the advancements in material technology but also a growing desire for the warmth of texture, and for a sense of connection to nature within the home. Blurring the boundary between the interior and the exterior and bringing nature inside could be described as a return to traditional Japanese spatial design.
Signs of this return to tradition are not limited to materials. The pandemic reshaped how people think about their homes, giving rise to a new layout trend.
“The pandemic forced people into working from home, heightening their awareness of the home as a space. At the same time, with multiple people spending more time together at home, small frictions began to build up within Japan’s compact houses, and that’s when layouts with kaiyūsei (回遊性), a sense of ‘circulation’ or flow, started to attract attention. This layout, which encourages movement and lets air flow freely, had previously been seen as wasteful of space and was not particularly popular.”
YS.T. / Architectural Producer, Japan
A layout that encourages movement and allows air to flow freely is, in fact, a defining feature of traditional Japanese wooden architecture; open structure with a blurred boundary between inside and outside. Japanese housing, having modernised in pursuit of urban convenience and efficiency, may now be entering a period of reconsidering its own traditional approach to building space, in materials and in layout alike, and rethinking the emotional quality of interior space itself.
China: A Home as Self-Expression, Built from a Blank Shell
To understand Chinese attitudes towards the home, the Confucian concept of “family” is an essential backdrop. Owning a home is not simply a personal choice but a responsibility and a source of pride for the entire family; the belief that “owning a good home is proof of a good life” has long fuelled vigorous investment in real estate. As new apartment construction surged during the rapid urbanisation that began in the 1990s, this combined with a strong desire for individual lifestyle expression to establish a culture of buying apartments as a “skeleton” (a bare shell with no interior fittings) and then working with an interior designer to create one’s own space.
The modern Chinese family tends to be small, with most couples living on their own or with only one child. As a result, the number of bedrooms is no longer the main measure of a home’s value, and the role of the common area has become far more important. In an intense working environment and fast‑paced lifestyle, Chinese homeowners find open and decluttered spaces both comforting and easier to maintain, storing items out of sight to create a calmer everyday atmosphere.
The most frequently cited ideal interior is “European-style minimalist luxury”, which is often associated with open plan, natural light, organic curves, and natural materials. In China, where social media is deeply embedded in daily life, it is now common practice to search RED (小红书 Xiaohongshu, often described as China’s answer to Instagram) for European interior styles for inspiration. What stands out now is how this once simple replication of European style, long used as an easy shorthand for luxury, is beginning to shift. Chinese homeowners are now rethinking the familiar “modern European minimal” look through the lens of their own living habits and needs, prioritising layouts that feel more fluid for daily tasks and support the way people connect within the home.
“There used to be a tendency to seek out the ‘pure’ form of a particular interior style - pure Scandinavian, or pure Japanese, for instance. The current trend, however, is moving towards a mix-and-match approach that fuses those elements with Chinese sensibility. This is happening because confidence in China’s own culture, and in one’s own taste, is growing.”
S.S. │ Housing & Interiors Blogger, China
A similar shift is happening with materials. Artificial marble, which dominated an entire era, has now reached saturation, and high-end consumers are turning instead to materials that feel closer and warmer, such as wood and fabric. Rather than relying on the imported “signifiers of luxury” once associated with Europe, there is growing enthusiasm for confidently embracing distinctly Chinese aesthetics - for example, rendering the forms of traditional Chinese furniture in Western materials.
Vietnam: The Memory of Indochine Style, and a New Lifestyle Reshaped by Urbanisation
Vietnam’s history of dwelling is a complex interweaving of geography, climate, and colonial memory. In the north, traditional houses built around spaces for ancestor worship reflect Confucian values; in the south, the openness of the tropics gave rise to airy structures built from coconut timber and palm leaves. And the “Indochine style” established under French colonial rule from the late nineteenth century onward, a fusion of French classical architectural structure with Southeast Asian materials and ornamentation, still quietly underlies Vietnam’s urban architecture and interior aesthetics today.
The ideal interior most often cited is a “classic modern Indochine-style” – a look that weaves Vietnamese tradition into a European base: cream tones and soft warm hues as a foundation, Vietnamese traditional furniture and wood-grain materials as accents, and a dedicated space in the living room for ancestor worship. Interestingly, although feng shui originated in China, it is in Vietnam that its principles, including “minh đường khai quang” (the arrangement of entrances and windows to shape the flow of energy), continue to exert a real and practical influence on layout and material choices.
In Vietnam today, multigenerational living in townhouses on owned land remains common, but the expansion of the middle class through economic growth, alongside rapid urbanisation, is quickly reshaping that structure. Demand is rising, particularly among younger generations, for new urban condominiums offering security and convenience, and a shift from multigenerational households towards nuclear family living is beginning to take hold.
“Apartments have expanded significantly in recent years, especially in major cities. This is because they satisfy both the stability of a well-managed, secure living environment and the convenience of proximity to entertainment and shopping. They match the needs of young people seeking an urban lifestyle.”
H.L. │ Founder, Architecture & Interior Design Media, Vietnam
Alongside this shift towards urban living, the ideal interior is changing too. Particularly among young people who have studied abroad in Europe or the US, more are seeking to express social status and class through foreign interior styles. This can be read as a move away from Indochine style, a legacy of the colonial era, and as a declaration of Vietnam’s modernisation.
A Shared Shift: Caught Between an Admiration for Europe and a Return to Local Culture
What Japan, China, and Vietnam share is a continued, strong admiration for European interior styles, yet all three are shifting away from straightforward imitation and towards a stage where that admiration is fused with their own culture, materials, and sensibility. The “ratio and form” of that fusion, however, looks entirely different depending on each country’s historical context.
In Japan, the fundamental structure of buildings and the culture of everyday life differ so greatly from Europe that admiration has never quite tipped over into imitation. A deeply rooted physical culture of “floor-based living,” together with a spatial logic that blurs the boundary between inside and outside, continues to shape a distinctly Japanese view of home. In China, the trajectory is moving from imitating European interiors as a symbol of luxury towards a style that fuses European and Chinese elements. In Vietnam, the Indochine style that has endured since the French colonial era is, in itself, already a fusion of European and Vietnamese styles. However, as urbanisation accelerates, young Vietnamese are now moving away from that older hybrid, working instead to establish a genuinely Vietnamese style built on a European foundation.
For players to remain relevant in Asia’s housing and interiors markets, following surface-level trends will not be enough. Understanding the historical layers beneath each country’s concept of “home” is the first step towards getting closer to what consumers truly want.
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