Japandi Interior Design

Japandi interior design is a popular recent hybrid style incorporating elements of Japanese and Scandinavian (Scandi) style. Japandi is all about enjoying simple, functional, beautifully made items that make your life both more comfortable and more beautiful.

Danshari, the Art of Letting Go

Both Japanese and Nordic cultures are known for their love of fine craftsmanship and respect for nature. They also highly value sustainability and living lightly on the earth. Avoiding waste or clutter is important to the Japandi aesthetic. Careful curation is also important. The Japanese concept of danshari, which means letting go of things that hold us back or create negative feelings, is a vital element of Japandi style. Following danshari means keeping only the things that bring us joy and comfort.

Hybrid Japanese & Scandinavian Decor

Key elements of Japandi interior design include the use of soft, natural hues like cream, light and dark greys, sand, and sky blue. Japandi rooms often include both smooth and rough woods, handmade pottery, leather details, or iron. Textiles are usually natural fibers like cotton, linen, and wool.

Japandi makes the most of natural light, and emphasizes elements of the natural world. Soft hues and a variety of textured materials are essential. Furniture is often simple in design, but it may be textural. Rattan, bamboo, and wicker may be mixed in with smoother woods. Flooring is usually pale to medium in color and made of wood planks. Unlike in traditional Japanese rooms, Japandi floors are often topped with an oatmeal-colored or grey sisal or Berber rug, or a fluffy white flokati rug. Fabrics tend to be solid natural fibers like raw hemp, linen, or brushed cotton. Japanese indigo-dyed linens may add some dark drama and a bit of pattern. Potted plants and vases of greenery bring liveliness and curves to the home. The overall effect should be tranquil and natural, like a view of a landscape.

Hygge, the Embrace of Coziness

The Danish appreciation of hygge, roughly translated as contentment or comfort, has made a big impact on international interior design in recent years. The concept is an important element of Japandi style.

Hygge involves embracing elements of softness, warmth, and light. These inspire quiet happiness at home. The Scandi appreciation for minimalism means hygge doesn’t involve a cluttered sort of coziness. It’s about choosing a few meaningful elements. These might include a candle in a handmade pottery holder, or a handknit throw in a creamy white or heathered grey.

Imagine a soft blue sofa next to a live-edge wood table topped with a latte, a candle, and a bowl of walnuts next to a simple brass nutcracker. Japandi style embraces this homey, simple, and relaxed feeling.

Comforting Contrasts

A minimalist style, Japandi is nonetheless meant to support relaxation and ease. There is room for simple but soft rugs and throws in a Japandi home, though you won’t find many decorative pillows. Motifs are often classic, using geometric or organic patterns derived from nature.

Bright or bold colors are not the rule. Yet Japandi interior design does emphasize the contrasts found in Japanese style, but less often in Scandinavian homes. This means including darker colors, along with white or cream walls and screens. It may include honey-colored tatami mats or bamboo floors. Rich indigo, greens, rusty reds, and browns set off sea-glass blue, sage green, pale pink, apricot, cream, or soft spring green.

Nordic style usually emphasizes pale, natural tones and pastel accents. Japanese style includes contrasting (though still natural) tones, such as reddish-orange or brown tones, and some black elements. These bring drama without looking garish. Japandi style may incorporate either or both the Nordic and the Japanese color palettes. Neither style includes much wall art; walls tend to be pale and uncluttered. Rooms may have a single hanging focal point in the room. This could be a large macrame hanging, a minimalist painting, or a Japanese brush painting.

Minimal but Meaningful Patterns

Pattern is used sparingly, and is usually regular and geometric, or inspired by natural elements like plants. Japandi homes may showcase indigo fabric created with the natural dark-blue dye. Sometimes indigo-dyed fabric features sashiko (“little stabs”). This traditional Japanese embroidery technique uses even, short, white stitches to create regular patterns that stand out on the purple-blue background. Such fabrics might be used for curtains, wall panels, throws, or bedspreads in a Japandi-style home. Tie-dyed indigo and white shibori fabrics also add subtle drama through pattern.

Form Follows Function

Multifunctional furnishings help keep clutter to a minimum in Japandi interior design. Open-concept rooms can be reconfigured with folding or sliding screens, or furniture that folds away when not in use. Such furnishings keep the sense of openness and unimpeded flow. The Scandinavian love of form that follows function complements the Japanese appreciation for open-concept living. Furniture in simple shapes with hidden storage makes sense in a minimalist home. But the feeling shouldn’t be austere or industrial. It may be minimal, but rustic natural and handcrafted shapes and textures are key. Elements should be complementary, not matching.

Plants Bring the Outdoors In

A minimalist space needn’t be a cold one. Just add reminders of the world outside through natural decor elements, colors, and plentiful natural light. These all bring warmth to a room. But nothing brings more natural vibrance into a space than a healthy green plant.

Traditional Japanese indoor plants tend toward the sculptural, but Japandi style incorporates more loose and natural shapes. Japandi interior design blurs the lines between the inside and the outdoors. Bringing in plants that look as if they sprouted right where they stand is a great way to add relaxed softness to a space.

The Sustainable, Well-Crafted Home

Midcentury modern (MCM) furniture owes a lot to Scandinavian aesthetics for its sensuously curvaceous wooden furnishings and decor. A piece of furniture in a Japandi home should feel good to the touch and look attractive. It should be well made, and fit in well with its surroundings. This aesthetic is common to MCM, Japanese, Scandinavian/Nordic, and Japandi interior design styles.

Modern Scandi style has been overtaken in the public mind by the simple, boxy, light-wood furnishings made popular by IKEA. IKEA style is pleasing, practical, and affordable, it’s true. However, it’s mass-produced and doesn’t have the subtle beauty and proportion of fine handcrafted furniture. Japandi style is closer to the traditional Nordic love of simple but perfectly proportioned and handcrafted furnishings. A room in the Japandi style shouldn’t feel like you went to IKEA and assembled everything in one trip. It should look and feel collected, curated, and carefully assembled over time, with love and intention. The elements should also be lasting and made of sustainable materials. The Japandi aesthetic is the opposite of disposable, faddish style.

Staying Grounded but Looking Upward

Japanese rooms tend to feature low-profile furniture. This follows the strongly horizontal format of Japanese homes. It keeps people lower to the ground, and thus quite literally “grounded.”

Scandi design isn’t as consistently horizontal, but does emphasize an unfussy naturalness. Nordic homes often have white, wicker, or metallic hanging pendant lamps, which draw the eye upward.

Consider including round, white Japanese paper lanterns (or lighting fixtures inspired by them) in a Japandi-style home. Bamboo-edged frosted glass or paper fixtures give a nod to the lightness of Japanese paper furnishings. They provide buoyancy as well as a vertical element. This keeps things feeling airy, and introduces more light, which makes a room cozier in the darker months.

Wabi-Sabi, the Embrace of the Imperfect

Japandi builds on the Japanese aesthetic tradition of “wabi-sabi,” which finds beauty in the incomplete and the imperfect. Handcrafted pieces should not look machine made, but should instead carry some sign of the hands that created them. Wabi-sabi does not just accept flaws, but elevates them as examples of individual craft. The elements that make up a work of art or decor, such as wood grain or a roughly textured pottery bowl, are celebrated.

Harmony Through Asymmetry

While living a balanced and harmonious life is a goal in Japandi design, that balance isn’t expressed in symmetry. Indeed, Japandi style (like Japanese style) is specifically about finding harmony through asymmetry. In Japan, decorating with even numbers of elements is thought to be unlucky. For example, tea sets are sold with a teapot and five cups, not four. Western interior designers have gravitated toward asymmetry since the mid-twentieth century as well, after focusing heavily on symmetry in previous eras.

The beauty of careful and balanced asymmetry, or fukinsei, can also be seen in Japanese bonsai trees and ikebana floral arrangements. These are not symmetrical and even. This differs from the European tradition of creating axial arrangements in which there is a central vertical core around which elements are evenly placed. This is common in much European plant pruning or floral design. By contrast, Japanese arts are about creating flowing movement that simulates nature’s own intentions. Scandinavian furniture of the mid-twentieth century, such as that design by Danish modernist designers, has subtle natural curves that mimic nature as well. This Danish modern natural simplicity works beautifully in a Japandi-styled home.

Intentionality & Flow

Scandinavian design is about natural flow and informality, so it combines successfully with the asymmetrical minimalism of Japanese design. Placement of elements should feel intentional, but not static or prissy. Over time, as you see how you move through your Japandi home, you’ll see what elements you want to emphasize and which you can let go of. Patience is key to Japandi living. You may find yourself moving plants, bowls, or chairs so that they take advantage of views or shafts of sunlight. Take cues from nature, and bring outside elements into your space as necessary to create a harmonious balance. When this happens, you’ll know that you and your home are in sync. And that’s the essence of Japandi.

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Soothing minimalism with touches of greenery and softness—that’s Japandi style | Katja Rooke for Unsplash