Interior Design Schools
Interior Design Schools Interior Design Resources Interior Designer Profiles |
 |
Put Feng Shui to Work in Your OfficeFeng shui--literally, "wind" and "water"--is a 3,500-year old Chinese environmental system of placement, which is all about balance and the flow of energy.
For example, a person whose desk faces the door of an office at the end of a hallway is in the path of negative energy so you need to reposition the desk at an angle to create a curvy flow. This flow of positive energy, or ch'i, is the first major concept of feng shui. The yin and the yang is the second concept, and the five elements is the third. Balancing yin and yang is perhaps the easiest part of feng shui, since yin and yang are fairly obvious to most people. "The analogy I like to use is Borders and Barnes & Nobel," Wong says. Barnes & Nobel, with its dark wood, hunter green carpet, and chintz, is very yin. Borders' light wood and airy, contemporary feel is very yang. Although the design works for those booksellers, Wong says most of us should strive to be neither too yin nor too yang. Why put the plants in the east or southeast? Because each direction has a corresponding element--fire is south; earth is northeast and southwest; metal is northwest and west; wood is east and southeast; water is north--and objects made of these elements, or pictures of them, should be in their corresponding directions. Wood, the elements plants and flowers fall under, is east and southeast. What you wouldn't want to place in the wood area are candles or any fire elements, since fire destroys wood. Likewise, Wong explains, "Don't go putting a picture of water in the south because it puts out the fire." Wong uses the acronym CANE to help clients understand the ways the various items can be placed for maximum effect. CANE stands for color, animal, number, and element. Using what you already have is where creativity comes in. The map that determines the locations of the various areas is the bagua, an octagon divided into eight wedges. Each wedge relates to specific "aspects." In the Compass School, each of the sections corresponds to a direction. According to Wong, the ba-gua breaks down like so:
The ba-gua can be used for the building as a whole or room by room. Perhaps the biggest key to feng shui has more to do with your mind and spirit than where you place your potted palm. "It's very holistic," Wong says. "Feng shui is the fourth leg of a table. You cannot practice good feng shui if you neglect the other three legs. If you have one strong leg and three weak legs, what's going to happen? The table will wobble. You have to take care of your spiritual self, your emotional self, and your intellectual self, and then practice feng shui. The other three are internal and feng shui is external, but they all work in concert with each other." Feng Shui Tips Eliminating clutter is the first step in general office feng shui. "The more clutter you have--and we all have it on working desks, even me--the more it stops up the energy," Wong says. Step two is to sit facing the door. "If you can't do that, you could put a mirror up. A lot of people work in cubicles, and that's where it gets a little tricky. What I tell people is if you cannot move anything in your cubicle-sweet-cubicle, you have to swivel you chair so [that] you're facing one of your best directions." Best directions vary from person to person and can be determined by a practitioner, but Wong believes most people intuitively know their best directions. A simple tip is to think about which way you were facing when you last received good news. Were you facing the same direction other times you received good news? If so, chances are that's your best direction. Here are some other simple tips to keep in mind:
Source: OfficeSolutions; 8/1/2000; Hendrickson, Paula Start your interior design career today by requesting information from one of our highly respected interior design schools! Find a school near you >> Copyright © 2005 Interior Design Schools All rights reserved. |
