Nur Aliyah Binte Mohammad Noor Azman
Can You Smell it Too?
Hi! I’m Nur Aliyah, a social designer interested in how design can bring people together. I design not just for, but together with communities through conversations, observations and shared experiences.
My work often begins with listening, whether it’s engaging in conversations with seniors, children, or anyone in between. I’m drawn to how different perspectives shape the way we live and understand everyday life, and how design can create spaces for these voices to be heard.
I pay attention to what often goes unnoticed such as the small encounters, quiet routines and subtle ways people live alongside one another. By bringing these moments to light, I hope to foster deeper understanding, connection, and care.
When I’m not designing, I enjoy learning about culture and heritage, and unapologetically talking about my cats.
Can You Smell It Too?
The project was inspired by lived experiences within rental flat environments, where proximity is unavoidable and boundaries are porous. Smell, unlike sight or sound, cannot be easily contained. It travels across windows, corridors, and shared spaces, often becoming a source of tension, complaint, or silent judgement. I became interested in how these reactions frequently occur without knowing the person behind the smell, where a neighbour becomes reduced to a source of discomfort rather than recognised as someone with habits, histories, and culture. This led me to ask: what happens when we move from noticing smells to understanding the lives behind them?
Over nine months of fieldwork in Hougang, I engaged in biweekly, informal conversations with residents, often starting with those I encountered regularly at the void deck and residents at the MakanBersama communal dinners. These repeated, casual interactions allowed for trust to build over time, creating space for more open and honest exchanges. Adopting an oral history and ethnographic approach, I prioritised ongoing dialogue rather than one-off interviews. To support these conversations, I designed low-barrier engagement tools such as prompt cards, which helped participants navigate sensitive or overlooked topics in a comfortable, accessible way.
Through this process, smell became a medium to explore how we coexist in shared spaces. While often dismissed as trivial or unpleasant, smells reveal patterns of living: who is present, what routines are repeated, and what histories persist. The project frames these everyday acts such as smoking, cooking, and body care, as forms of relational labour: small, often invisible efforts that sustain relationship and connection over time.
Importantly, the project also positions smell as a potential tool for community development. Rather than viewing it solely as a nuisance, smell can act as a social cue for connection, a starting point for conversations that might not otherwise happen. By recognising the routines, care practices, and histories embedded in these smells, neighbours can begin to see one another beyond surface-level discomfort.
Rather than resolving conflict, Can You Smell It Too? proposes a shift in perspective: from reacting to smells, to recognising the lives that produce them. In doing so, it invites participants to reconsider everyday discomforts not as isolated annoyances, but as traces of someone else’s reality.