The Chinese practice of working with environmental forces for prosperity and harmony has become popular with people looking to optimise their private spaces. “I” thinks beyond interiors and moves “the art of placement” from living room to the streets, analysing four of the world’s major cities. How does your favourite city flow?

AUTHOR: Kimberly Bradley ¦ 3-D RENDERINGS: Studio Aecht Lang ¦ ILLUSTRATOR: Marion Paul

“I come like Water, and like Wind I go,” wrote Edward FitzGerald, the 19th-century English poet who perhaps had an inkling of something much more ancient: feng (“wind”) shui (“water”), a practice that originated in China several thousand years ago but has been rediscovered and popularised within the western world. The principles of feng shui are based upon the movement of chi, the life force all around us: magazines, interior designers, even home-improvement television programs tout the benefits of its flow and advise getting rid of extra possessions, rearranging furniture and living simpler lives. According to the feng shui’s tenets, gentle winds and smooth waters allow chi to move smoothly through a space, with auspicious effects on the people living or working there. But when the winds are too strong or the water is stagnant, chi moves either too quickly or is blocked. This can result in misfortune, miscommunication, or worse.

To become masters, feng shui students must study the many facets of the craft for years. In practice, the masters use traditional methods involving mathematics, compass directions, energy charts, even astronomy, or more modern ones, like charting a living space into sectors, to address the layouts of landforms, buildings or rooms in a house. They locate problem areas and advise measures, such as specific colours or mirrors, to optimise the area’s feng shui. Apparently the effects can be dramatic. Some people claim to have increased their income almost immediately after placing a mirror on the door of a poorly-placed bathroom (which can cause the owner of a house to “flush money down the toilet”) or report better communication with their families or coworkers after moving a large piece of furniture into an optimal position.

If feng shui can work at home, why not apply it on a grander scale? Asian communities and palatial complexes, like Beijing’s Forbidden City, were originally planned according to feng shui principles, but how does chi flow through the streets of a Western metropolis like London, Paris, Berlin or New York? Using a combination of yang feng shui, which primarily analyses the effects of individual buildings, and yin feng shui, which analyses landforms, UK experts Thomas Coxon and Dr. Tuan Anh Diep examined the relationship of the aforementioned cities to feng shui principles, and suggested adjustments and improvements.

The results are illuminating, but also qualified by the experts: “The earth is the way it is because of energy. Whether we put buildings on it doesn’t really change that. The buildings influence one another,” Diep says. There’s also no such thing as perfectly arranged community, but any city standing today has something positive going for it. “Cities have gradually grown up with a mix of what’s practical and good feng shui,” Coxon says. The duo’s diagnoses, believe them or not, are on the following pages.

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THOMAS COXON AND DR. TUAN ANH DIEP are feng shui masters based in England. Coxon, a consultant for more than ten years, is an expert in analysing the effects of buildings upon their occupants. Diep, also a medical doctor, has studied landform feng shui with Vietnamese Grand Master Nhi Nguyen since 1997.