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Feng shui strikes chord
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September 11, 1999: 9:57 a.m. ET
Asian art of environmental balance catches on in Corporate America
By Staff Writer Shelly K. Schwartz
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - As home base for one of the world's trendiest clothing manufacturers, you might expect to find brightly colored doors and cutting edge decor adorning the halls of Esprit de Corp corporation in San Francisco.
And you will. But it's got nothing to do with modern day design.
The San Francisco-based couturier recently wrapped up a year of renovations that implemented the advice of a feng shui consultant.
"We love our building and our people and wanted to create an environmental that people felt comfortable in," said Margot Lewis, Esprit's vice president of marketing. "There's a big trend towards this right now. I think people are very cognizant of this as a way to foster more harmony in the work environment."
She's right.
Feng shui, the ancient Chinese philosophy of environmental balance, is gaining acceptance in Corporate America as employers react to a tightening labor market and take new steps to retain good workers. Many also use feng shui to appeal to deep-pocket Asian clients.
"It's catching on like crazy," said Betty Stone, director of marketing at the Academy of Feng Shui Assessment. "You wouldn't believe it. In the last few years it's been getting a lot of acknowledgment."
The art of balance
The practice of feng shui has been in existence for thousands of years.
In the Orient, it continues to determine where major corporations build their headquarters, how employees position their desks and where office machines are located.
"I like to define it as the art of placement that aligns our energies with the natural energies of the earth and universe," said Angi Ma Wong, an intercultural consultant and feng shui teacher.
Practitioners of the philosophy use feng shui to create an environment that allows for the unimpeded flow of earth's natural energy -- or "chi."
That, in turn, they say, helps improve productivity, creativity and interpersonal relations.
"It really works," Wong said. "It just feels better after you use feng shui You are more productive, more prosperous and more healthy."
Skeptical? Just ask yourself these questions:
How did you know the house your bought was right for you? How many times did you have to move the furniture in your living room around before it felt right? Why do you sleep better in some hotels rooms than others?
That's feng shui in action, Wong says, adding we all feel its forces -- whether we label it or not.
"It doesn't matter if you're ensconced behind a big redwood desk on the 95th floor of the Chrysler building or if it's your kitchen table," Wong said. "You still practice it. We all want to face the direction that is most natural."
A science
Both Stone and Wong stress the practice of feng shui involves much more than merely moving the furniture.
Traditional feng shui involves the use of a Chinese compass and mathematical equations that take into account the position of the planets to make a assessments of a property.
"Our calculations are done according to the solar system," Stone said. "It's all very scientific."
Feng shui consultants who use these methods offer clients advice on the balance (or lack thereof) of the five natural elements within a room. They are: earth, fire, water, metal and wood.
If the client is missing the fire element in one section of the room, for example, the consultant might suggest they can add a candle or decorate with a red or purple object -- a table cloth will do.
The need for a metal element on a wall can be remedied with a metal ornament (of the decorator's choosing), while a missing earth element can be fixed with the purchase of a plant.
Clients who are retrofitting an existing property can often get away with less than $1,000.
But it's not always that easy. To be feng shui compliant, some homes and offices must be completely remodeled. The kitchen sometimes has to be moved to another side of the house. The office bathroom must be uprooted.
Major renovations like those can cost you $50,000 to $100,000 or more. And that doesn't include the consulting fee.
Consultants generally start at around $300 for a two-hour consultation (enough time to assess smaller homes and offices), but can climb as high as $1 million for major office projects.
Preventive measures
For large projects like that, however, the best plan is to implement feng shui early on in the design process -- before any mistakes are made.
That's where architects like Raymond Cheng come in. The developer and architect in Los Angeles specializes in helping clients -- business and residential alike -- locate property that is feng shui correct.
"They want to be sure they've done it right because the end users of these properties, in many cases, are Asian," he said. "They want to apply that extra touch to make sure there are no problems."
Cheng, who implements traditional feng shui in the blueprint design of buildings as well, said far more real estate developers in the United States rely upon Chinese philosophy than you might imagine.
"There is a major developer out here who I was talking to recently who was applying feng shui to all of his projects but didn't want to make it known to the public," he said. "He applied it very subtly so he wouldn't have people who didn't understand feng shui start wondering, 'What's this all about?' "
Cheng noted it's important to point out that applying feng shui principles to real estate design does not interfere with the basic rules of good architecture. In some cases, it may simply require a quick redesign so the front and back door are not directly aligned. That's a basic no-no of feng shui principles, since it allows the positive chi (or energy) to flow straight through the house.
Cheng said the percentage of non-Asian clients he has served in the last five years has grown to 30 percent, from 10 percent. He expects that number to climb even higher in the coming years.
"In the U.S. it's catching on," he said. "We are now dealing with more and more non-Asian clients who want to know more about feng shui and they want it applied to their design decisions."
On the corporate level, he said, one of the industries that have embraced feng shui the fastest are the large real estate developers who build in regions with large Asian populations. That's especially true of builders in Los Angeles, he said, who view the city as the gateway for investment dollars flowing out of Hong Kong and Singapore.
Wong said developers have been among her largest clients as well.
"Bad feng shui is like the kiss of death," she said. "No one is going to buy that house. So, the first thing you want to do is find a good piece of property with good feng shui."
Casinos are another market that has embraced feng shui.
"I don't know who's doing it for them, but almost every single major casino on the Las Vegas strip these days is built in compliance with fung shui principles," Cheng said, noting the vast fountains and water features that most casinos prominently display out front.
In feng shui, water means money and virtually all the casinos today keep their gambling floor slightly below street level as a result -- to keep the water from flowing outside.
"They spend millions and millions of dollars on these projects and they are all doing great," Cheng said. "These are big-time players coming in from all over the Orient, dropping $10,000 to $15,000 per head. The first thing they say when they look at a hotel is, 'Does it have good feng shui?' "
If it doesn't, he added, "they won't even walk in."
Cheng said he and the other members of the American Feng Shui Institute have studied the casinos and every time they get perfect marks for feng shui balance. That doesn't happen by accident, he said.
A roll of the dice
Stone said her clientele these days is evenly divided among commercial and residential projects. Her biggest commercial clients include real estate developers, restaurants and casinos. She's even helped out a water park seeking feng shui guidance.
(According to reports, both Donald Trump and Madonna also both rely upon feng shui consultants.)
"The return is phenomenal," she said. "People wouldn't do it unless it worked. The big clients, though, don't like to talk about it."
Find a consultant
Finding a qualified feng shui consultant can be challenging, since there's no association and no formal certification courses.
But Wong suggests you ask around for recommendations and go online to pull up names of consultants.
And always, she said, get references.
"Ten years ago there were just a handful of us (in Southern California) and we all knew each other and respected each other's work," she said. "Today, it's like everyone and his brother is coming out of the woodwork."
As for Esprit's feng shui redesign, Lewis said so far so good.
"There's a certain bonding experience that went along with this," she said, adding the company hopes to implement feng shui in its New York office at some point too. "I think the whole experience has brought people together."
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