The Smell in the city & Olfactory to memories

After thousands years of evolution, humans have created an artificial living space a concrete jungle in which to live. We cannot see the original natural territory any more. The ancient ecological territory has sunk under the modern city.

Years later, since the great growth of population and competition of society, people had to expand their territory to satisfy the large amount of land for more people and new industries, which means more artificial environment had to be developed. Designed environments are complex as all the natural elements involved in the environment might be replaced by man made things.

It is a complex development to create a new environment, while the ancient one cannot be seen anymore there are still a few clues to find what they used to be.

The old territory cannot be recognised anymore, and instead, the new environment we live in now has replaced the old one to make it more suitable for the contemporary word. However, nature has also shrunk away during the replacement and people cannot feel close to the natural environment anymore.

Different senses bring people back to the specific moments and different people would have different memories. As common sense, we do recall the memories in one moment by a trigger such as a colour, a smell or a name, which may be similar to the scenes or feelings as we have experienced before.

How to take advantage of olfactory senses into architecture should be considered. The controlling and simulation of smell in the city could be a method to change the conditions in different areas and even affect the citizens’ daily life. After the study of olfactory to emotion and memory, the potential of psychological architecture could be an invisible way to rebuild a new environment, a new atmosphere, or a new territory.