We use the word ‘home’ in everyday conversations, but we rarely remember in depth what the word carries. While design is the recipe to a good home, nourishing the senses is what actually makes it a good dish.
Spaces are perceived first with how you feel in it before what you can see or touch and this is majorly because of the fragrance of the space. Think of the home you grew up in, when you close your eyes the first memory is almost never visual, it’s that drifting smell of morning filter coffee your grandparents shared, the smell of cake your mother baked for occasions, the sandalwood from the incense sticks or freshly tempered curry leaves in hot oil. It’s these fragrances that send signals to our brain, denoting that we are home.
Among the five senses, the most underutilised sense is that of smell also referred to as olfaction. For centuries, we have left this unnoticed while it has significantly existed all along.
By consciously integrating scents through interior design, we can design landscapes of scent or scentscapes that have a large impact on our day-to-day living. Olfactory experiences are known to enhance psychological and physiological responses in people, allowing scents to influence behaviour, responses, and well-being. With the integration of scent in our spaces, we can design them to resonate with us on an intuitive level enhancing the experience of a space and helping with resonance of connectivity.
These fragrances do something that no other sense can do; they transport us back in time, back to childhood, to a loved one, a festival or a moment we thought we would never experience again. Indian homes have been incorporating this for centuries without giving it a name. The beginning of prayers with incense, the monsoon rain falling in the courtyard creating an earthy fragrance of wet soil, spices in the kitchen, flowers decorating homes and hair along with the use of sandalwood or camphor for their calming fragrance. None of these were accidental; they were things that built our sense of home.
With artificial fragrances taking over homes, they are losing the charm of a ‘home fragrance’. When homes are made, they could be big in scale but if they have a lingering smell of dampness, the premium furniture won’t help fix the smell. On the other hand, a modest home with natural light, materials, and the aroma of a home cooked meal instantly feels welcoming. The experience of a space hugely depends on how it smells as good design engages all the senses. As designers, we carefully consider colour palettes, wall finishes, and furniture designs, but its time to ask different questions. Where does morning light enter? Can natural materials enhance the natural fragrance of the space? Is there a corner where there could be fresh flowers instead of inducing artificial fragrances in picture perfect spaces? Imagine a child growing up today. Years later, what smell will remind them of home? Will it be that of fresh coriander being chopped in the kitchen or that of a sterile aerosol sprayed every morning?
The answer matters more than we know. Because memories aren’t built by grand gestures, sometimes it’s the things we breathe in rather than visually enjoy.