Renovating and building is ever popular in Australia and there are an increasing number of options to consider. Interest in the ancient Chinese field of Feng Shui is growing in the Western world. This article is designed to help you see whether or not Feng Shui is for you.

What’s the purpose of Feng Shui in designing a renovation or new home?

Have you ever walked into a home and immediately liked it before even seeing the whole house? On the other hand, have you walked into a place and disliked it, perhaps not even being able to pin point why? One of the reasons could be Feng Shui. Just as you and I emit energies, a house has its own set of energies. These energies can influence how we feel and how we live.

A cold, dark room can make us feel depressed, unmotivated and we need to fight against these influences to finish a task. We can’t actually see ‘cold’; we can see the effects of cold, such as steamy breath when we talk, but we can’t see cold itself. For example, we couldn’t say what colour it is and how big it is. Nevertheless, we know it exists and we can feel its effects, despite not being able to see it. Similarly, Qi (life-force energy) can’t be seen but it exists and our lives can be affected by it.

Qi can be positive/beneficial or negative/harmful. Positive Qi in a place can increase your potential for happiness, good health, relationships and finances. Negative Qi can potentially contribute to health, relationship and financial problems. Every place will have both positive and negative Qi because they always exist together, just as Night doesn’t exist without Day and Day doesn’t exist without Night. Feng Shui is a tool that is used to identify the Qi at a site so that the positive Qi can be collected and retained while the effects of the negative Qi can be minimised. Having good Feng Shui is like walking with the wind behind you instead of walking against the wind: the energies in your home work to support you in your life, rather than hinder you.

Feng Shui is an option to consider when renovating or building, as this is the time when you have the maximum chance of implementing change. Whether or not you use Feng Shui is a personal choice. I liken it to investing in a building inspection before buying a house. The purpose of the inspection is for peace of mind: problems can be identified so that you can do something about them. A Feng Shui analysis will let you know what energies are there so you can do something about them. Some people would rather not know what negative energies are in their house. However, the energies are there whether they chose to know about them or not. At least if you have the knowledge, you have the power of choice: you can choose what you want to do.

Can I do the Feng Shui myself?

‘DIY’ is very popular now, with lifestyle shows filling our TV screens. There are many books on Feng Shui that you might like to read for interest. Books, however, can be confusing when one recommends one thing and another recommends something entirely different to address what seems to be the same issue. Further, books can only hold a limited amount of information.

Feng Shui is a complex area of study. It is, in fact, one of the branches of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Whereas the other branches focus on the Qi in our bodies, Feng Shui focuses on the Qi in the environment in which our bodies are living and working.

To answer the question ‘Can I do it myself’, let’s use acupuncture, another branch of Traditional Chinese Medicine, as an analogy. If you are interested in acupuncture, you can read a book but if you want a treatment, you go to a trained professional rather than trying to do it yourself from a book. There are things you can do yourself, such as massaging acupressure points. However, if you want a full analysis, you go to a professional.

Similarly, there are some things that you could implement to improve the Feng Shui of your home. However, some Feng Shui ‘remedies’ can do more harm than good if used incorrectly. For this and other reasons, do-it-yourself Feng Shui can be very hit and miss. For a thorough analysis, a professional consultant is recommended.

What will a consultant do?

The aim of a Feng Shui analysis in the design of a building is to determine how to best enhance the positive energies and reduce the negative energies at the site.

A thorough analysis should include the following:

analysis of the area surrounding the site

analysis of the site itself (the property)

analysis of the best placement of the building on the site

mathematical calculations to determine the best Feng Shui chart for the building

design of the floor plan to enhance auspicious energies and minimise negative energies. This includes designing to allow ideal furniture placement and use of supporting colours for each of the rooms/areas. Of course, functionality of the resulting floor plan is very important.

landscaping recommendations

A consultant can draw from a number of different ‘schools’ of Feng Shui. Three commonly used schools of Feng Shui are: Form School, Compass School and Flying Star School. These are briefly described below.

Form School : Form School involves the analysis of forms. Forms are any physical objects in or around the building and the site. Forms include furniture, trees, hills, lakes, fences and neighbouring buildings. All forms have their own Qi, which contribute to the Qi of the site.

Compass School: Compass School involves determining the compass direction that a building faces, then dividing the site into nine sectors that relate to eight directions of the compass (North, North-East, East, South-East, South, South-West, West and North-West) and a central Tai Ji sector. Each sector relates to a different aspect of your life, such as career, family, marriage etc. The general Qi in the different sectors can influence the respective aspects of your life.

Simplified versions of Compass School are popular in the general media, such as magazines and television, as they are easier to explain than the more complex forms of Feng Shui. However, as they are highly simplified, they have a low chance of actually being correct or accurate if used alone. Therefore, these simplified forms of Feng Shui should always be used in conjunction with Flying Star School.

Flying Star School: Flying Star School is considered to be the most sacred and comprehensive school of Feng Shui. It is used to calculate the natal chart of the building, which identifies the more specific Qi in each of the nine sectors. Flying Star School takes into account the age of the building, which is something that the other schools of Feng Shui do not consider. All Feng Shui recommendations should take into account the Flying Star analysis, as Flying Stars School can override recommendations based on the other schools. To make suggestions without a full analysis has the potential to do more harm than good.

There are many different schools with many different names. However, the majority of them would fall into one of the above schools.

Feng Shui objectives of layout design

In each of the nine sectors of a building, certain energies will be stimulated by Yang activities such as talking, playing music, exercise, working, cooking, TV etc, and other energies will be stimulated by Yin activities such as sleeping and meditation. These energies can be positive or negative. A good layout can result in a more comfortable and coherent home, which supports you and your family in life.

When designing the layout of a home, the following objectives are targeted:

Main entrance is placed in a sector that brings auspicious energy into the home.

Bedrooms are placed in sectors where positive energies are stimulated by sleep or Yin activities.

Active rooms such as living rooms, dining rooms and study/office are placed in sectors where positive energies are stimulated by Yang activities.

Wet rooms are placed in sectors with inauspicious energies.

Windows and interior doors are placed to allow the best furniture arrangements.

This can prove to be very challenging because in each building, there are only 2 to 3 usable sectors out of 9 that are auspicious for Yang activities and 2 to 3 that are auspicious for Yin activities. To avoid a hit and miss scenario, it is very important to know what energies you have and where they are located (hence the recommendation to engage a professional).

When do I engage a consultant?

Ideally engage a Feng Shui consultant as early as possible once you have decided what you want in the house. For example, you might want 3 bedrooms, a study, kitchen with separate dining room, and so on. It is best to involve the Feng Shui consultant before architectural drawings are done. This is because the Feng Shui analysis will determine the ideal placement of the rooms, according to where the positive and negative energies are at your site. Once the layout is proposed, then the architect can take it from there.

If you are at the stage where the architect has already drawn up the plans, it’s not too late. A Feng Shui analysis can be used to determine how to improve on the plans. If the rooms are not ideally placed and you don’t want to make changes, the Feng Shui consultant can at least give you suggestions as to how to make the best of the positive energy and reduce the impact of the negative energy within the existing plans.

How do I choose a consultant

There are many Feng Shui consultants in Australia, so how do you choose one? Here are some questions that you can ask them to help you decide.

Training & experience

One of the most important things to determine is how knowledgeable the consultant is. This doesn’t mean that the consultant needs to come from an empirical line of Feng Shui masters. However, you want to be comfortable with the level of training and experience that he or she offers.

The Feng Shui industry in Australia is currently unregulated. Therefore, the training and experience of Feng Shui consultants varies greatly, from consultants who might have read a couple of books and started practising, to consultants who have studied and trained for years. Ask your consultant about their training and about their experience in the type of job for which you want to engage them. For example, some Feng Shui consultants specialise in designing renovations and new buildings while others specialise in other areas of practice.

Some architects and designers now incorporate principles of Feng Shui into their designs. This is great. However, do ask if they are trained Feng Shui professionals as well as architects or designers. If not, you might still want to engage a professional Feng Shui consultant. Feng Shui is not just about good design, beautiful décor, feeling good in a space and so on. While good Feng Shui can result in these things, it is not just about these things. Feng Shui is one of the branches of Traditional Chinese Medicine and is therefore a complex area of study.

What is included in consultancy?

Ask the consultants which schools of Feng Shui they use in a consultation (see “What will a consultant do” section above). It is important that they don’t rely only on the simplified schools.

You can also ask the consultants how they go about doing the consultation and what they give you as part of the consult, for example, a written report or verbal report, drawings of floor plans and so on.

Other modalities

Consultants will vary in the other services that they can provide. A consultant might offer certain modalities that you are interested in and this could help you make a decision. Some other modalities relating to renovating or building are listed below:

Geomancy: just as the building has a set of energies, the land that the building is on has its own energies. Geomancy is used to the determine energies on or within the land, with the aim of detecting imbalances and remedying them.

Building Biology: is the detection and reduction of health hazards in the environment. These include chemical hazards, air contamination, water quality, electromagnetic radiation etc. These can all cause serious health problems for people spending time in the home.

Space Clearing: is the removal of energies that have been imprinted on the site by people coming on to the site such as previous or current occupants, builders, servicemen etc. It is also used to clear negative entities and spirits. If spirits are attached to the site rather than the house, they will still be there even if you build a new house.

Price

Last but not least, you might consider price. However, remember the saying ‘you get what you pay for’? This can be the case in an unregulated industry so be careful if you are basing your decision solely on price.

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