SCENT MEMORIES

category: design for death - competition
award: not relevant
place: Austin, USA
designer: Rudy Davi
project team: Federico Gamarro
year: 2013
text:
what can give us the sensation of having our beloved ones still at our side? Any person has a personal scent. Smells can transport us back to powerful and emotional memories from the past and it has more power than any other sense in bringing back us to distant memories. The impact of odor on our memory is related with the process of amygdala and hippocampus brain regions wich control emotion and memory.

The propose of the new gravestone design intend to let the people feel back the special sensation of the body scent. Standing into the new gravestone wrapped by the smell, should give the feeling of beeing embranced by our beloved ones. The gravestone is made out of steel. On top of it is located an urn which relase drops of the person essence which run along the steel surface. The aim is to yield a chimical essence which has the same fragrance of the person when was alive and let it dissolve around the grave.