Feng Shui and Work Environments

Buildings and interiors have always intrigued me. When I first went to work in real estate,  I had to make a choice between two job offers. Knowing nothing about what I know of Feng Shui today, I look back and see that intuitively, I already had a sense of its principles. With two offers, and one with a higher commission, it was not a difficult choice. I chose the company whose “surroundings” felt better to me – the lower-commission company. Due to its environment, my long-term income rose higher than it would have been in the other, less pleasant, atmosphere.

Today’s astute building and business owners realize that environment plays a huge part in a buyer’s or employee’s emotions. Employees are happier in harmonious surroundings. Buyers are more eager to buy into the ‘healthy, yet harmonious' image. Our world is filled with ongoing stress from family life to world events. Any space that creates a slight feeling of relaxation is a welcome relief.

Enter Feng Shui (sounds like: Fun Play or Fung Shway): the Chinese art of placement that represents the words “Wind-Water.” This art, which also has a mathematical basis, has been used for over 4,000 years in design of buildings, cities and even burial grounds in China. Feng Shui in its origins was harbored by Chinese Emperors for use in palace and burial design, and even in the planning of war. The bottom line is that people are influenced by the cyclical patterns of nature. Feng Shui capitalizes on this and brings this sense of nature and its inherent symetry, back into buildings.