Smell is the most direct route to memory, yet it remains the least explored sensory design tool. Appreciating contemporary perfumery is remarkably design-adjacent to architecture in many ways, including an appreciation for structure, material behaviour, and developing a meaningful design narrative that can draw inspiration from site conditions or ecological factors. And yet, most designers have not stopped to critically assess the value of perfumery beyond browsing a duty-free shop or experiencing a scented lobby in a boutique hotel.

Olfaction, defined as the act or process of smelling, is gaining greater cultural seriousness as new audiences seek out embodied experiences through art, museums and public spaces. Scent is becoming a design medium in its own right — one that architects can specify with the same intention they bring to light, material, and sound. Arts-based organizations with open-access pedagogy, niche perfumers collaborating with architects, and site-responsive installations are moving the idea of scent closer to invisible architecture.

“In the 20th century, we’ve been taught to define perfume as an object of consumption, so when I’m teaching at an art or architecture school, I tell students that any intentional combination of aromatic materials for a predetermined result is how I define perfume,” says Saskia Wilson-Brown, Founder and Executive Director at the Institute for Art and Olfaction (IAO) in Los Angeles. “If an architect takes mahogany wood or rough cedar or whatever, and intentionally combines them for a smell purpose, that architecture then becomes an instance of perfume.”