Shapes and sightlines

The relationship of shapes to The Five Energies. The energietic qualities of shapes can have a marked effect on the lives of the people who live and work inside them. For example, your experience of sitting in a round room is very different to the feeling you have when seated in a square room. Similarly, you react ot a room with a high curved ceiling in one way and in another way to a room with a sloping roof. The effect of shapes -  not only on your feelings but on the general direction of your life - is part of the storehouse of Feng Shui wisdom. One example of this effect is connected with roofs. But The shape of a building or a plot of land has significance as well. The contours affect the relationship of the enclosed space with the energy of the space that surrounds it. Some shapes attract energy to certain points in the structure, others repel it. Using this principle, it is possible to determine the most suitable points to locate yourself within the space. The incoming energy may be helpful or harmful to you - this depends on many factors; but the general principle in Feng Shui is that it is better to avoid you be subjected to the sustained impact of negative influences.

A clear sightline

A house needs a clear sighline, just as a person needs to be able to see straight a head without obstruction. A level roof corresponds to a person whose cap is straight. Having a sloping roof over your head is like having the visor of your cap pulled down over your eyes. In Feng Shui, the family that lives in a house with a sloping roof will never advance, and a nation whose people live under such roofs will become inward-looking and stagnant.

An L-shaped house
Energy converges on a L-shaped house. If the front door is there, accidents will happen and many other things will go wrong. If you are looking at flats in a block shaped like this, your best bet is to choose one at either of the ends, shown in a lighter tone, for away from the converging arrows.

Concave and convex curves
A curved surface that is concave acts like a receiver. It draws energy toward itself. If you were to build a house on land with this shape, the safest locations would be at the two ends, with the entrance facing in toward the middle. An outward, convex curve deflects the energy: even those beams that strike the middle fail to penetrate. Any location inside such a space is relatively protected.

Roundabouts and cul-de-sacs

Circular living

some people live in circular settings, sometimes around a road interchange, some times in specially designed housing complexes. These may look attractive, but to the eye of the Feng Shui practitioner they both pose problems.

In the case of the roundabout, the energy spins, creating a vortex. Bands of energy shoot off at high velocity and bombard the houses. This subjects the households to constant disturbance. From the safety point of view, collisions and accidents, such as brake failures, can result in automobiles following the spinning energy lines and ploughing into houses on the margin.

Enclave living

A quiet dead-end street or a designer enclave like this may look like just the place for some peace and quiet. But imagine the energy entering the open end of the street and finding nowhere to go. It literally piles up like stagnant water at one end of a pond or like multiple vehicles ramming into each other on a blocked freeway. The families that live closest to the dead end will probably find comparable effects in their lives: a sense of having nowhere to go, or of having no future. It is unlikely that they will have a vibrant social life or that their businesses will thrive. The impact of the colliding and stagnating energy may also lead to disturbances in their family lives.

Three Fire buildings dominate these pages, each in a different cultural setting, each serving a different purpose, and yet all striking in their intensity and power.

Fire shapes
The irregular triangles of the Sydney Opera House lick the sky like flames. Seen from this angle, the whole structure has the quality of a craft with full sails: when the energy of the Wind and Water move together in certain directions, this ingenious structure draws that power to itself and to the city that surrounds it. Small wonder that Sydney will host the Olympics of the millennium!

Fire color
St. Basil's, with its world-famous domes, rises above the Kremlin in Moscow. It is a striking example of a Fire building -  triangular in shape and predominantly red. It conveys tremendous power. If its energy acts as your mother, the protection it affords is immense. But if that energy is turned against you, you face a mighty enemy.

Fire structure
This pyramid at the Louvre in Paris was designed by the Chinese architect responsible for the Bank of China in Hong Kong. It is a superb Fire structure, drawing down intense energy from the heavens - and making this site a prodigious attraction for visitors. It is perfectly banlanced with the Water structure of the Louvre.

The world of form

Places and buildings have color and shape. Both these aspects have an energetic quality. As we have seen, specific colors are associated with The Five Energies. Even without studying anything about this, we know that we have a natural, intutitive response to color. Nowadays, it is common to explain our response to color by referring to the vibrating energy of the electromagnetic spectrum, but the essential response of the human organism to the energy of different colors has been known and studied for countless years. You can easily imagine the difference, for example, between cooking in a kitchen painted in black, or in warm yellow. Your response is more than a question of personal preference, although the color you feel most comfortable with in that context could tell the Feng Shui practitioner much about you.

Shapes, too, have a particular energetic quality, affecting the flow of energies within them and around them. As with color, we respond differently to angularity and to roundness -  and our responses will vary according to the conditions and circumstances in which we encounter any particular shape. In the therory of The Five Energies, specific are associated with Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, and Wood. When it comes to painting or choosing construction materials, the selection of color is important to ensure the overall harmony of the various energies.

Square Shapes

A square shape denotes Earth. This is a common shape for many homes, either with flat roofs or ones that slope very gently. The shape itself expresses the supportive, secure, and stable quality of Earth. Warm tones of yellow and brown and ideal.

Round shapes

A round structure, such as a water tower or geodesic dome, has the energetic quality of Metal. Its energy is directed inward. Such structures will function most harmoniously if they are of the color associated with Metal: white.

Curving, horizontal shapes

A building that has a curving or indented, horizontal shape is expressive of the flowing and constantly changing aspect of Water energy. Such buildings are best constructed of dark materials or painted in the dark blues or black of Water energy.

Rectangular shapes

Buildings that have a strong rectangular shape express growth, expansiveness, and power. This is typical of Wood energy. Shades of green are best suited to them, including green-tinted glass.

Triangular shapes

The inspiring, exciting upward rush of Fire energy makes the triangle the shape for buildings such as temples or other places of worship. The color most perfectly suited to such structures is red. For example, the red brick and stone that is common on certain churches, and the brilliant red paintwork on the pillar of many oriental places of workship.