The sound and smell of spaces we inhabit

Scent and sound are powerful mood and scene-setting factors.

- MANJU SARA RAJAN

Space impacts you through the unseen as much as the seen. A set of rooms has inherent physical qualities, but is also shaped by abstractions. They have quietly powerful characteristics that often come to define how you feel about them. We consume places through all our senses, and while for most of us sight takes instinctual precedence, sounds and smells are as impactful, and in the long term can affect the way we think of a place. I like to think that spaces use sound and scent as a way of asserting themselves, particularly on new inhabitants. These qualities take hold partly as an accident of the environment they're located in and partly as the result of their nurturing, or lack thereof. When you move into a rented apartment, for instance, you're dealing with the way that place has been treated by previous inhabitants and the qualities bestowed on it by way of the place it is located in. How you balance—or drown out—those realities to meet your own needs will dictate whether you are comfortable there or not. Scent and sound are two powerful mood and scene-setting factors in a space. Depending on your preferences, you have to create rituals to bolster or mask the realities of your home.