The Invisible City_Festival of Smell by Alan Lau from australia

The invisible city-Festival of Smell investigates the idea of creating territories without the reliance on physical visible elements, using Victoria,Australia as a test area. Alternatively, smell becomes the primary sense used to give identity and shape this new territory. To capture this smell, essential oils are extracted from native flowers. Planted according to their blooming seasons in a strip around Melbourne’s green wedges, the flowers are then harvested by farmers moving along the belt throughout the year to complete the cycle.

The intent is that the flower belt promotes environmental and social sustainability by becoming an infrastructure that helps connect rural suburbs and various attractions currently divided by highways and rivers. To navigate this new terrain walking and cycling is encouraged as an alternative and major form of transport. Embracing the landscape and weaving between the green wedges and built-up areas, this new infrastructure also works as a firebreak during a bush fire attack.
Floral water is mixed with essential oils extracted from the harvested flowers in ‘perfume’ factories and distributed to the local suburb residents’ backyards via waterworks. Sprinklers then release the floral water simultaneously at times across the year for 30 minutes filling the entire suburb with an identical smell. The invisible city thus emerges from sprinklers in the backyard.

This festival of smell phenomenon is celebrated to help build stronger identity within state council suburbs without the use of any physicality.

The feasibility of the project is supported by the research and calculations that demonstrates how the flower belt can be self-sustainable.