With the increasing desire to have one’s home be a natural and safe haven, many consumers are seeking, and in fact, demanding environments free of chemical contaminants and polluted air. Published articles and research on "sick building syndrome" and mold contamination have described many of the symptoms and causes.
Sustainable building practices and guidelines such as LEED’s (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) have entered the marketplace and are providing steps toward providing safely built environments. Avoiding outgassing and other contaminants provides a healthier built environment for your family to enjoy.
Feng Shui has been embraced as a method of balancing and enhancing a home or office. While some "cures" proposed by practitioners may seem far-fetched, true classic schools of Chinese Feng Shui are rooted in humble origins and are quite effective. Placing a water fountain in and of itself may or may not bring harmony. Placing a water fountain appropriately based on one of twenty-eight classic water placement methods, can, however, provide life enhancement.
Placing water in an inauspicious location of your particular home or office has the potential of creating a very negative impact on health and harmony in that space.
The universal need for shelter from nature and the observation of nature’s cycles developed into regional methods and styles of Feng Shui. Cultures throughout the world developed their own localized Feng Shui under many names. Many methodologies including to where to build, how to build and what materials to build with are varied throughout regions. As examples you need only to look to the cultures over the world’s history; Egypt, Ireland, India, Japan and the First Nations of the American Indians.
Chinese Feng Shui was historically developed in an agriculturally based culture that developed basic explanations of life, seasonal cycles and nature. Theories and observations developed into Eastern Philosophies such as Yin-Yang, I Ching, and Feng Shui. Feng Shui was applied when making such decisions as to where a community would choose shelter, from Emperor’s Palaces to community centers and family homes living with nature, seasons and farming practices.
Feng Shui has developed over thousands of years of observing human habitation in shelters and the natural environment. Observation of nature has provided a wealth of knowledge of cycles to consider under the Tung Siu Chinese calendar and Zi Ping Ming Li or Four Pillars of Destiny.
Construction in earlier years was primitive and made of masonry or stone blocks outside surfaced and rubble fill inside load bearing walls. A very naturally built environment was surrounded by organic farms.
Over the centuries, man has moved from caves to castles. Stone masonry was the dominant system up to the Industrial Revolution, when the world’s building techniques changed most dramatically. Larger structures became possible with increased steel production. Following World Wars I and II, the Chemical and Petroleum Industries provided thousands of new materials and methods. On one hand this appears to be progress. Unfortunately, on the other hand, these "progresses" have led to the polluted environments we live and work in today - a veritable contaminated chemical soup.
Green building and sustainability, together with applied Feng Shui, are part of today’s focused efforts to get back to a more natural orientation in our human built environments of homes and offices. When applied, this symbiotic combination helps to achieve peace, harmony and prosperity.
In designing homes and offices, a compass reading with the Chinese Loupan and some calculations will determine the locations for required windows or doors to bring in the auspicious Qi (life force energy) to optimize the building for Human Harmony and Prosperity. Other calculations indicate the auspicious positioning of water features and the inauspicious locations to avoid. Many other schools and methods bring more balance and healthiness to the building and occupants.
As Architect and Interior Designer, these are the extra talents and expertise we bring to our clients working to have a sustainable and harmonious living space.
--Contact us at our office: Raymond Cox and Lita LoeschCox tel. 928-649-6009 2310 W. Hwy 89A, suite 11, PMB 480 Sedona, AZ 86336 www.coxdurango.com