The scent of architecture: A house with a living wall, Lisbon Portugal.

With its living façade this lovely house site proudly if mysteriously somewhere in the city Lisbon, Portugal. With its long thin rooftop pool it evokes the early work of Koolhaas at Villa Dall' Ava but the language of this building is far more polished.

I came across this mysterious house on Home Klondike where I can find no mention of who designed it, or where exactly it is! We can make our own narrative about the owners and why there is such mystery, but we do know that the emphasis is on the 4,500 plants used in the living wall, and we also know that the aroma from these plants creates a kind of haze of perfume around the house.

The olfactory characteristics of architecture are seldom considered, or communicated in reviews, so perhaps I could invite you to close your eyes and conjure-up the scents of lavender, rosemary and saffron wafting from this earthly delight.