A quiet week in Tokyo: notes on ma (間)

Ma (間) is the interval: the silence between two sounds in a piece of music, the gravel between stones in a rock garden, the empty wall behind a single scroll in a tea room. It's not absence — it's a structural element.

We think about ma when we design interfaces. A screen with no wasted UI, generous whitespace, one clear action instead of twelve competing ones. Restraint is a feature.