If you could design the perfect perfume boutique, what would it look like? Would you want a private smelling booth? A fainting couch? How about a bar so you could have a drink or an espresso while you wait for the dry down? Would it be all white minimalism like LA’s The Scent Bar? A black-and-gold wrapped present of a room like Ormonde Jayne’s London store? A crowded jewel box with red walls and a chandelier, like New York’s Aedes de Venustas? Or something else altogether?

Last fall, Professor Lois Weinthal invited me to lecture on perfume to her interior design seminar at the University of Texas School of Architecture. The students would spend the semester designing an ideal perfume boutique with me as their “client.” But there was a twist: their other client would be Professor Jeffrey Siegel, an engineer who studies indoor air pollution. The students would have to satisfy both of us.

On my first class visit I introduced the students to the basics of perfume…

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