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VOL. 12.6

ARCHIVES:

By O.B. Wetzell
 

Sculptors speak of releasing the hidden form that sleeps in a crude block of rock before they put chisel to it. Similarly, the feng shui architect aims to release the good energy in the land, optimizing the layout of living spaces.
 

With good feng shui, the design flows in response to the surrounding landforms, the weather patterns, the cardinal points of the compass, and the birthdays of the occupants. The morning exit from one’s house should face the sun. And care has to be taken when designing any living space that the chi – the spiritual energy found in nature – cannot leak out onto a roadway or up a chimney. Conversely, all spaces should be oriented so as to absorb the good chi that emanates from strong natural features such as mountains, rocks and large trees.

When my wife and I set out to design our Phuket dream home, we pledged to honour both the sleeping forms and the spirits of the land. While I believe that the design was partly driven by spirits, I have occasionally wondered how honourable they were. Besides which, there’s the question of how “dreamy” the actual design process was.

We soon discovered that dreams may not be the stuff of which houses are made. Not unlike rock-climbing, once you have started – in this case with the designing and building, rather than the ascent of a cliff-face – your sense of control is constantly undermined. Even the slightest decision can be fraught with peril. Our house is now “completed”, however, and functions as a house should, so our memories of the traumas surrounding its conception and birth dim.

I suppose that the true master of this ancient art intuitively weighs the relative importance of seemingly contradictory constraints. In my own case, I have had prescriptions backfire. A water garden I installed in a house to promote restfulness, for example, soon filled with frogs that croaked the client awake at night. On another occasion, I built a house that received its energy from a magnificent tree nestled in its centre. Unfortunately, the tree was a charitable host to a zillion white ants that went on to eat the wooden parts of the house.

We were left a little befuddled by the study of our own plot of land and the attempt to remain loyal to the many mandates of feng shui. As with all art forms, feng shui does not admit of perfection. Even the most attentive designer can only hope to achieve some degree of symmetry with most of the rules. With our dream house, the simple need to drain torrential rainwater out of a central courtyard left me contradicting the feng shui dictate: “Thou shalt not use rain gutters.” This designer, at least, finds complying with all the rules of feng shui a bit like simultaneously rubbing your tummy and patting your head. Nonetheless, as earlier stated, for the design of our dream home, I did try to honour the spirits of nature with good feng shui.

We began by buying a plot of land in a rice paddy. This should have been simple enough, except that it turned out to be two plots sharing a border of varying dimensions. Curiously, the title deeds of the separate lots required entitlements from two different land-use authorities, which effectively meant that we had to choose to build on one lot or the other, for a house cannot have two permits. Choosing to build on the plot that was farthest out in the rice paddy gave us a long entry driveway and a big front yard – elements that we decided to like. Because the size and shape of the chosen plot also determined the size and shape of the house, we struggled to like the size and shape of the plot as well, albeit not without straining the notion that we had complete control over the design.

Owing more to the dimensions of the plot and less to the brilliance of the designers, the concept crystallized into a U-shaped house constructed around a swimming pool. The shape having already being determined, we were left to design the living spaces. Any number of questions suddenly boiled up, each with potentially perilous consequences. Even 10 years of marriage and 32 years of design and construction background complemented by a study of feng shui left us unprepared to answer the lifestyle questions that surfaced. Can two girls share a bathroom? Should the children hear the noises from the master suite? Who gets to sleep closest to the toilet? Where will the dog sleep? Where is the TV? What kind of guests will be welcome? Are there going to be any more children or dogs? How do we feel about modesty? Who do mosquitoes like most; who needs the most sleep and privacy? …

At this stage, impasses became commonplace. Fearing that we’d never get any further, we engaged a contractor and told him to get on with it. The design started to gain flesh, and conflicting dreams were resolved by concrete and bricks. Our sense of design control was undermined as difficult lifestyle questions were often answered by default. Misplaced pilings meant that a wall had to be moved. The plumbing was eventually set in concrete, ending any debate about where to put the toilets. As the walls were erected, window options ceased to be options. The roof’s spearmint hue, a given, dictated the colours of all the other elements. Many design decisions were dictated by circumstance, and never mind all our professional huffing and puffing. The Dream Home began to grow as if indeed possessed by its own spirits. (As mentioned earlier, I still wonder whether those spirits were ones worthy of honouring.)

Fortunately, not all of the design was caprice and default, and not all of the tenets of feng shui were set aside. We were able to preserve at least these design principles:

* The children have their own recreational area, corralled off from the rest of the playroom. (Have you ever stepped barefoot on a Lego brick?)

* Each of the adults has a private space. (Each designed according to the user’s own sense of order.)

* The open-air family room can entertain 50 wet and hungry bathers without hazard and charmed by views of buffalo, mountains, garden and water.

* The swimming pool in the centre breathes cool air into the surrounding rooms, which are at the same time protected from the heat of the sun.

* The entry hallway allows for a breeze without losing the chi. (The “spirit wall” positioned at the end of the breeze-way is not for privacy but to allow for a gentle wind.)

We were able to achieve a design that supported our desired lifestyle and allowed for some good energy, or chi, to be preserved. Or so we believe.

A feng shui master has yet to tour the completed house. Seeking validation, I did seek a master to come and divine our house. I called several friends that I knew had used such services. Whereas they all strongly supported having the home blessed early in its design stage, they unanimously advised me to not bring a feng shui master into my completed home. “What if the master tells you to tear out a major chunk of your house for fear your energy for earning money will be blocked as long as you live there?” was one warning. Another was, “What if your dream home houses unclean spirits that can only be evacuated if you move the kitchen to where the bedroom is now?”

At the least, I feared, we’d find ourselves succumbing to the power of suggestion and the master’s warnings of negative outcomes would turn into self-fulfilling prophecies. I opted out. 

My study of feng shui and my pursuit of the dream home have led me to these conclusions: some ignorance is indeed bliss; and most sense of control is indeed illusion. Happily, the spirits of Phuket have been friendly—two little girls can indeed share a bathroom; and the dog … Well, he sleeps wherever he wants.

The Theory of Feng Shui

Feng shui is based on a centuries-old Chinese precept that our well-being is influenced by our environment. It’s an ongoing dialogue, affecting the basic harmony of our lives.

The name ‘feng shui’ means wind and water, two of the most powerful forces in nature. The practice of feng shui focuses on helping us achieve a harmonious relationship with nature by altering or re-arranging our immediate world: homes, offices, even individual rooms or desktops.

The primary energy force in nature, and a principle tenet of feng shui, is ch’i (or chi). Ch’i is energy: without ch’i there is no life, too much and there is chaos. How ch’i flows through our personal environment affects how our lives will play out. The practice of feng shui helps us direct the flow of ch’i in our lives enabling us to attain a greater sense of well-being.

The other fundamental principle in feng shui is Tao, or the path. Yin and yang are the means to “the path” and represent the duality present in all things, linking heaven and earth as well as humans and their environment. Too much of one or the other in our surroundings can unbalance ch’i which again brings chaos. Harmony is gained by maintaining a balance of yin and yang, through the careful placement in our environments of the five elements: metal, earth, fire, water and wood.