The office stinks! I can't be the only one that's noticed the distinct smell of an architect's office. Can I describe it? There's definitely graphite in the mix. And paper. And maybe ink? Stain and paint. Toxic off-gassing from material samples? Wood and concrete? Strong coffee, certainly.

Perhaps it is an airborne combustion of all of the above mixed with tears of desperation? [That wouldn't be far-fetched.] However it is generated in the first place, it is remarkably persistent and transferable. It must move from the old office to the new one in the horsehair dust brushes and rolls of old plans, and fans out upon arrival.

I was probably a month or two old when I made my first visit to my dad's office, and by the time I could walk and talk the scent was familiar to me. In those days, there was also ammonia and cigarette smoke in the mix.

There's a lot less of the smell in modern offices. At Bezek Durst Seiser's office, the smell was 90 percent gone from the main studio, but it was strong in the bathrooms when I first started working there in 2005 [until the rooms were remodeled]. At a building downtown near the Federal Building, I noticed the smell is still there [strong in the shared corridor and elevator] even though the architect's office has moved out.

I was kind of tickled the other day when I opened the front door of my house and the architect's office smell was spilling out into the living area from the offices of FRamE! Whoa!

A while back I noticed a news item that somebody was developing a GMO garlic that was scentless. Heresy! Why would you deprive yourself of that aroma [even if it isn't your favorite?]. What I didn't realize until recently [another case of, you don't know what you have 'til it's gone] is the garlic experiments were a symptom of a larger conspiracy to eliminate a major part of experience of an interior environment -- one that architects used to control.