In the middle of the TU/e campus is a large area, called 'La Place'. Since the name indicates that it is the place to be, this is also expected by people visiting the campus. However, their expectations are never met. To improve the overall atmosphere of the square a few pavilions are imagined there, one of which is the pavilion of scent. A few facts have to be summed up before the design can be fully understood: People recall smells with a 65% accuracy after a year, while the visual recall of photos sinks to about 50% after only three months. Our odour memories frequently have strong emotional qualities and are associated with the good or bad experiences in which they
occurred. Olfaction is handled by the same part of the brain (the limbic system) that handles memories and emotions. Therefore, we often find that we can immediately recognise and respond to smells from childhood such as the smell of clean sheets, cookies baking in the oven, the smell of new books or a musty room in Grandma’s house. Very often we cannot put a name to these odours yet they have a strong emotive association even if they cannot be specifically identified. Any kind of scent can be reproduced by 17 'standardised' scents. By visualizing the 17 standard scents in 17 elements and arranging them accordingly a composition is created.