What Does an Office Smell Like and Why Does It Matter?

If you ask office workers what an office smells like, the answers usually come immediately. Carpet. Coffee. Paper. Air conditioning. Humidity. Cleaning products. Wood. The inside of a closed closet. Some even recall the smell of a particular conference room, elevator, or reception area. Almost nobody answers “nothing.”

And yet, few things accompany daily life so closely while receiving so little attention. People recognize the smell of an office as easily as they recognize a familiar voice or a well-known street, but they rarely stop to think about it.

It is a striking contradiction. Various studies² on indoor environmental quality suggest that, unlike variables such as lighting, temperature, acoustics, and ventilation, smell remains one of the least considered aspects of building design, even though people spend between 80% and 95% of their urban lives indoors.

The scale is far from insignificant. In Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey alone, the office inventory exceeds 11.4 million square meters, enough to accommodate more than 1.2 million office workers¹ efficiently.

For a population equivalent to that of an entire city, the question is whether that omission really matters. The latest evidence suggests that it does.

Studies² have found that smell influences not only how people perceive a space, but also variables associated with attention, fatigue, mood, and even certain cognitive functions related to office work.

The reason is unusual. Unlike the other senses, smell maintains a particularly close connection with brain regions linked to emotion and memory. In practical terms, this means that an aroma can shape the experience of a space before a person even forms a conscious opinion about it.

That is why some sectors—hotels, luxury retailers, casinos, and even airlines—use specific scents to reinforce brand identity, influence perceptions of a space, and create lasting emotional associations.

Evidence also suggests that the effect depends not only on the presence of an aroma but on the aroma itself.

A recent study of office environments found that floral scents—such as lavender or jasmine—produced the best results for relieving physical fatigue and reducing perceived effort. Citrus and fruit-based scents—such as lemon and orange—were associated with improvements in attention, execution speed, energy, and mood, particularly during cognitively demanding tasks, whereas scents associated with forests and wood primarily reduced feelings of time pressure and psychological stress.

But that does not mean an office should remain scented throughout the entire workday. The recommendation is not to continuously perfume workspaces, but to introduce brief exposures of around one to two minutes after periods of 40 to 60 minutes of intensive work, helping recovery without overwhelming occupants.

The question, then, may not be when offices should start smelling like lavender or citrus. The question is why one of the senses most closely linked to memory, emotion, and well-being has been treated for decades as a ventilation issue rather than a design variable.

Part of the answer may lie in the nature of smell itself. Unlike responses to temperature, noise, or lighting, reactions to an aroma are rarely universal. The same fragrance can evoke concentration, nostalgia, or calm in some people while generating discomfort or rejection in others. Offices also bring together hundreds or even thousands of occupants every day, each with different sensitivities, preferences, and experiences.

As a result, the corporate real estate market has historically preferred to control odors rather than design them. Better air filtration, low-emission materials, natural ventilation, humidity control, and health- and wellness-focused certifications are all part of a strategy aimed more at eliminating undesirable stimuli than creating new ones.

The conversation is only beginning. But if buildings are already designed to look better, sound better, and feel better, it may not be so surprising if one day they are designed for the sense of smell as well.

Want to learn more about the trends transforming the office real estate market? Visit SiiLA or write to us at contacto@siila.com.mx.

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¹ Calculation based on more than 11.4 million m² of corporate gross leasable area (GLA) in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey, divided by 9.3 m² per employee, the minimum recommended workspace allocation under the Complementary Technical Standards for Architectural Design. The figure represents potential occupancy capacity, not actual employment.

² See Yildirim et al. (2024, Building and Environment), Kafaei et al. (2025, Building and Environment), Spence (2020, Frontiers in Psychology) and Feng et al. (2026, Buildings).