The art and science of Feng Shui—a study on architects’ perception

The theories and practices of Feng Shui can be classified into two major categories namely the Form School and Compass School. Form School has been more recognised by building professionals, as it is more scientific than the Compass School for analysing the built environment. The Form School is based on the understanding of physical configuration of geographical features, and these principles can be applied to both macro (e.g. design of a city, selection of site, etc.) and micro (e.g. orientation of building, interior layout, etc.) built environment. This paper explores the Feng Shui concepts under the Form School, and an ideal Feng Shui model is introduced. The model is used for verifying whether the design of architects based on more scientific derivation is likely to be in line with the ancient Feng Shui theories. An empirical survey was conducted with architects in Sydney and Hong Kong, and the results show that the selection of surrounding environment for a building and interior layout as proposed by the architects generally concurs with the ideal Feng Shui model established more than two thousands years ago.