Aletta, Francesco

Radicchi, Antonella

Xiao, Jieling

English

UCL Discovery

EDITORIALpublished: 25 April 2022doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.880701Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 1 April 2022 | Volume 13 | Article 880701Edited and reviewed by:Giuseppe Carrus,Roma Tre University, Italy*Correspondence:Jieling Xiaojieling.xiao@bcu.ac.ukSpecialty section:This article was submitted toEnvironmental Psychology,a section of the journalFrontiers in PsychologyReceived: 21 February 2022Accepted: 05 April 2022Published: 25 April 2022Citation:Xiao J, Aletta F and Radicchi A (2022)Editorial: Smells, Well-Being, and theBuilt Environment.Front. Psychol. 13:880701.doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.880701Editorial: Smells, Well-Being, and theBuilt EnvironmentJieling Xiao 1*, Francesco Aletta 2 and Antonella Radicchi 31 School of Architecture and Design, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, United Kingdom, 2 Institute for EnvironmentalDesign and Engineering, University College London, London, United Kingdom, 3 Institute of Urban and Regional Planning,Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, GermanyKeywords: well-being, smell perception, spatial design and management, environmental planning, tehcnologyEditorial of the Research TopicSmells, Well-Being, and the Built EnvironmentINTRODUCTIONFrom the pungent smells of Khari Baoli Spice Market in New Delhi to soothing smells of MayfairLavender Farm in south London, smells bring distinct identities to places and can connect peopleemotionally to the surroundings (Porteous, 1985). Smells are powerful to influence our feelingsand recall memories of the past. Experiences of smells enrich our understanding of places andbehavioral responses in places (Classen et al., 1994; Henshaw, 2014; Xiao, 2018) (Figure 1). Inlight of aromatherapies, spaces with therapeutic smells can potentially bring positive impacts onhuman wellbeing. In service spaces, smells are important environmental cues to delight people. Inartistic practice, smells are curated to create an immersive experience to connect the audience andartists’ inner worlds. Conversely smells in the form of odor pollution deriving from waste, traffic,plants, and food districts can compromise the quality of life of residents, and negatively affect ourexperience of places and lead to behavior changes (Henshaw et al., 2018).In this Research Topic, we aimed to collect a range of contributions to understand the emotionaland wellbeing responses resulting from smells in different public spaces (museums, highstreets,heritage buildings, food districts, neighborhoods, squares, etc.) to inform future spatial designand management. The articles in this Research Topic are presented according to three types ofcontributions: reviews and conceptual analyses, empirical research in fieldwork, in laboratorystudies and technological applications.REVIEWS AND CONCEPTUAL ANALYSESXiao et al. reviewed smellscape research studies conducted in the past 10 years to identify thechallenges and related areas of future research, namely smell archives and databases, social justicewithin odor control and management, and research into advanced building materials. Spencereviewed the changing role of smells in the built environment from negative associations withsanitation to meaningful personal and cultural associations with memories and experiences whichled to an evaluation of different approaches in examining the impact of smells on people’smood or wellbeing and the challenges of researching smells in the multi-sensory environment.Xiao et al. Editorial: Smells, Well-Being and Built EnvironmentFIGURE 1 | Reading the smells in various sites in the Digbeth area in the city of Birmingham, UK.Moving from the sick building sydrome to sick transportsydrome, Spence further reviewed the smells in transportenvironments as aesthetic and functional, and suggestschallenges for future transportation to produce a moretangible vision to integrate smells in the design processto achieve the right balance of olfactory stimulation.Looking backwards to scented past, Bembibre and Strličmake the case for the need of knowledge exchange andinterdisciplinary interpretation of findings in the field ofolfactory heritage, providing an overview of methodological andmuseal studies as well as challenges associated with historicalscent reconstruction.EMPIRICAL RESEARCH - FIELDWORKPálsdóttir et al. carried out a field study with participantssuffering from stress-related mental disorders and explored howthey would describe their smellscape perception of a gardenin the context of a nature-based rehabilitation intervention.In a different field study, de Groot investigated whetherambient scents could affect customers’ subjective experienceand spending behavior in an experiment with customers ofa second-hand clothing store. The author concluded that forthat to happen, the smellscape should have a meaningful linkto the physical context. Masaoka et al. present the resultsof a study conducted to examine whether continuous odorstimuli associated with autobiographical memories could activateolfactory areas in the brain of older adults and assess whether thisodor stimulation could have a protective effect against age-relatedcognitive decline.EMPIRICAL RESEARCH - LABORATORYSTUDIES AND TECHNOLOGICALAPPLICATIONSMasaoka et al. investigated the potential protective effectfrom age-related cognitive decline of continuous odor stimuliassociated with autobiographical memories and whether thosecould activate the above olfactory areas in older adults. Jianget al. used blood pressure, pulse rate, EEG, POMS, and SD datato examine the odor-visual effects of the Primula forbesii Franchcompared with the non-fragrant Primula malacoides Franchon the physiological and psychological state of Chinese femalecollege students in the indoor environment. Courrèges et al.examined the correlations between odor and texture in users’perceptions of cosmetic creams cross-culturally, in laboratoryconditions, using questionnaires, minimizing the impacts ofbranded messages from the packing and retail spaces. Amoreset al. discussed the design and technical implementation ofEssence- a smartphone-controlled wearable device that monitorsusers’ EEG and real-time sleep staging algorithm to release scentsto interact with users- in home-based sleep environments.Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 2 April 2022 | Volume 13 | Article 880701Xiao et al. Editorial: Smells, Well-Being and Built EnvironmentThe articles included in this Research Topic representa nice balance between the theoretical reviews, empiricalstudies and laboratory research, showing the vibrance anddynamic in this research field as well as new technologicaldevelopments such as extended reality, emotional sensors(i.e. EEG, GSR) and odor monitoring devices. New insightsare drawn into the theoretical frameworks to understandrelationships between smells, wellbeing and emotions, behaviorsand physiological aspects; methodological approachesto measure smell triggered emotions, experiences, andquality of life; practical explorations on the process andchallenges of using smells to influence user experiences in thebuilt environment.AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONSAll authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectualcontribution to the work and approved it for publication.FUNDINGThis editorial project received support via the ConferenceNetwork and Mobility Fund from Birmingham City University.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe editors would like to thank all the authors, reviewers, and theeditorial team from Frontiers.REFERENCESClassen, C., Howes, D., and Synnott, A. (1994). Aroma: The Cultural History ofSmell. London: Routledge.Henshaw, V. (2014). “Urban Smellscapes: Understanding and Designing CitySmell Environments”, New York, NY: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9780203072776Henshaw, V., McLean, K., Medway, D., Perkins, C., and Warnaby, G.(2018). “Designing with Smell Practices, Techniques and Challenges”, London:Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781315666273Porteous, J. D. (1985). Smellscape. Progr. Phys. Geogr. 9, 356–378.doi: 10.1177/030913338500900303Xiao, J. (2018). “Smell, smellscape, and place-making: a review of approaches tostudy smellscape”, in Handbook of research on perception-driven approachesto urban assessment and design. p. 240–258. doi: 10.4018/978-1-5225-3637-6.ch010Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that the research was conducted in theabsence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as apotential conflict of interest.Publisher’s Note: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authorsand do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those ofthe publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated inthis article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed orendorsed by the publisher.Copyright © 2022 Xiao, Aletta and Radicchi. This is an open-access articledistributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided theoriginal author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the originalpublication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice.No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with theseterms.Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 3 April 2022 | Volume 13 | Article 880701

Editorial: Smells, Well-Being, and the Built Environment

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Editorial: Smells, Well-Being, and the Built Environment

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