1st, 2nd and 3rd skin

Last saturday, when I went to bring a long-awaited book by Santiago Calatrava called "The Poetics of Movement" back to the library, a very dull and thick air of unnatural materials struck into my nose, very soon with the breeze of opening the door. It was so invasive, that it was all I could think of. Just as when you realise someone smoking just walked past you. You almost start to choke. And then you hold your breath, until you realise doing this for too long ain´t gonna help in the long run and you actually might run out of air at all. So best I can do is actually just breath deep enough to get at least any possible oxygen lost in that air to reach the cells that need it the most. So you are kind of trapped in the situation. And very soon you adapt to the situation and start the conversation with the librarian and do you thing, of course, everything is manageable.
And yet you understand how all this could have been prevented with the right and conscious choice of materials by the architects or interior architects/designers or whoever in charge of this action. Would there have been another type of material that would not produce the smell, I would not have had to think of alternative places to find books from now on...