Vastu Science and Feng Shui in Contemporary Architectural Design - Essay Example

The Role of 'Vastu Science' and 'Feng Shui' in Contemporary Architectural Design and Property Development 2007 Contemporary architecture inherits and reflects old traditions and cultural values followed by Asian societies. Vastu and Feng-Shui influence construction and design of modern buildings and landscapes. The result is a perfect interpenetration of building with environment, in which the artificial is integrated with the natural, hard wood and metal with liquid and air and light, geometric rational plan with teasing unpredictability of natural forms, reality with shadows and reflections, the seemingly eternal with the fleeting and constantly changing. Eastern religious traditions represent a unique combination of cultural and social norms, beliefs and literary traditions of society. Vastu and Feng-Shui as a part of religions, reflect worldviews of people and interpretation of human existence typical for Eastern hemisphere. In general, a religion means a strict, unwritten code of essential rules (including morals and traditions) established by humans in order to control social life of their society. Vastu and Feng-Shui is a part of old traditions and culture of Chinese and Indian societies. In a time, they became popular in all Asian countries. Both of the concepts refer to the science of planning buildings, travelways, and graves such that they will get maximum benefits and minimum damage from the 'the cosmos'. More specifically, Feng-Shui addresses wind, water, and other natural forces. "Natural forces" in this case include good and bad luck, which are explicitly compared to wind. The idea of both approaches is that inhabitants of a well-sited home, or descendants of someone buried in a good gravesite, can expect wealth, sons, status, and security to flow to them. Rajgopal (2002) explains: The rebirth of Vastu Shastra parallels contemporary spiritual movements arising all over the world that seek to connect with a higher energy, draw closer to the mysteries of the universe, and contribute to a major paradigm shift (p. 33). However, focally, Vastu and Feng-Shui involve perfectly practical advice on how to site a house to take maximal advantage of sun, water, and wind. It is a true folk science, as recognized by the first Western observer to comment extensively on it and by many Chinese and Westerners since Vastu and Feng-Shui also involve an emotional response to landscapes (Freeman, 2005). In India, excellent work is being done which shows not only that modem architecture can be given a worthy landscape setting, but also that it may soon be possible to find landscape architects who can deal imaginatively with the vast new opportunities created for them by modern town and country planning. But no large body of recognizably modern landscape architecture exists, and in only a few countries is there a strong school of designers (Pegrum, 2000). In modern Asian (and Indian) architecture the two great motive forces of the modern movement are on the one hand the new opportunities being created by technical and social progress and on the other the new structural techniques. In landscape architecture new opportunities are certainly being created, but the technique of garden construction is still fundamentally the same as it was in the eighteenth century. "The three main principles of Veda are right orientation, right placement, and right proportion" (Rajgopal, 2002, p. 34). Even the invention of modern earth-moving machinery, which may seem revolutionary, has in fact merely accelerated and cheapened processes which were used by old builders. Rajgopal (2002) explains that: The reason for da Gama's consternation was that all buildings constructed in Kerala, regardless of the faith of their inhabitants, were built according to the principles of Vastu Shastra by takshagans-- skilled craftsmen-carpenters well versed in the ancient science (p. 34). Today, in Vastu and Feng-Shui, in spite of the advance of science and the discovery of new plants, there has been no change in technique which could have influenced landscape architecture in the way in which frame construction, for example, influenced architecture. If this lack of revolutionary technical changes is one of the reasons why landscape has failed to produce its own modern movement, the continuity of traditional technique has certainly not resulted in the preservation of the traditional principles of the landscape movement of the eighteenth century. Indeed, the extreme decadence of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century landscape design is an example-if any is needed-of the uselessness of a tradition of technique without those traditions of thought and sensibility which create a style (Landscape Architecture 2006). Second, the modern landscape architect's chief raw materials are on the one hand simple building constructions, and, on the other, vegetation. Simple constructions, that is, compared to the complexity of modern building; for although a landscape architect may occasionally be involved in retaining walls, dams and other fairly elaborate structures, he will normally be concerned with such things as garden walls, steps and pavings. Simple though these are, there is more to be learnt about them from experience than from books, and this should include, if possible, actual manual practice in laying and building (Freeman, 2005). The technique of paving, for example, is much misunderstood both by architects and builders, and it is nowadays extremely difficult to get sound and beautiful paving laid. This is due partly to stinting first cost-almost always, with paving, a false economy-but mainly to ignorance of the craft itself; for example, to failing either to allow for settlement of the paving with the movement of the ground, or to make the expensive substructure which is needed to prevent it; or perhaps to the useless and unsightly cementing of joints in stone paving on a sand bed (Ninian, 2002). It is a great pity that the traditional stone pavings, in slabs, setts and boulders, are giving way on grounds of, first, cost, to cheap concrete. Not only have the stone pavings an infinite variety of colour and texture, but as they will stand for centuries. The remarkable features of Vastu and Feng-Shui is that landscape architecture too little susceptible of design in the architectural sense but too dependent on the craftsman, the weather and posterity (Thapar, 2002). However, it is necessary to point out that Vastu and Feng-Shui is a major builder of unity within communities. The village will stand together in opposing a new and dangerous road, constructing a new and desirable pagoda, and protecting their sacred grove. They will also stand together in demanding compensation or mitigation from the government when the latter tries to force a major project on them. Even in contemporary India, many architectures suppose that Vastu and Feng-Shui means 'money", and for this reason they apply old traditions into modern building designs (Pegrum, 2000). Cruickshank (1998) underlines: Since India has a vast range of climates and building materials, and many different cultural and religious communities needing their own distinct buildings, the traditional buildings of India are breathtaking in the variety of their forms and types (p. 7). In contrast, in the West large government projects are typically very detrimental indeed to local townspeople and farmers. Flooding, pollution, traffic problems and congestion, interference with water supplies, cutting down of valuable trees, driving away of game, and dozens of other damaging effects are universal. The breakdown of Feng-Shui in most of the urban Orient provides researchers with a perfect test case. The dramatic spectacle of the western New Territories in June 1966 was a particularly revealing case, with the old villages standing above water and the new ones mostly awash. But one sees other problems everywhere. South Korea, where once the houses were kept meticulously away from cultivated land, has lost over 15 percent of its farmland to urban sprawl. China has suffered from poorly planned construction; from massive erosion and deforestation following the cutting of Feng-Shui groves; from flooding and pollution. Hong Kong's New Territories have not only suffered from floods and droughts and from loss of trees, but also from extreme scatteration, expense of extending urban services, and chaotic construction. The urban areas have lost aesthetic harmony and become overbuilt to the point of slumminess. Old Indian cities were not exactly models of urban design, but they kept the worst problems under some control. And the old Indian countryside genuinely was a model of design. The Indian were experts in listening to the wisdom of the earth in their planning processes. But Vastu does far more than set guidelines; its real value lies in its ability to act as a powerful motivator of communities to follow the guidelines. In old India, there was no way of enforcing rational planning (Pegrum, 2000). All peasants knew that their own future good fortune depended on following its rules. If a peasant was tempted to disregard possible future welfare and choose his own present self-interest, his neighbors would immediately raise the alarm: he was wrecking the community's Feng-Shui and Vastu.The proof of the effectiveness of Feng-Shui and Vastu, both as planning science and as powerful motivating force, is seen in the orderly, tree-rich, well-managed landscape of the more fortunate parts of old India. Erosion in much of North India was beyond anyone's power to stop, and war or rebellion devastated much of the south; but wherever nature and humanity could possibly exist in harmony, they did so. Vastu was not perfectly effective but compared to the almost total failure of environmental planning in the developed countries, with its superior scientific establishment and law enforcement capabilities, Vastu was nothing short of miraculous (Gats, 2007). There is a whole subfield of Vastu and Feng-Shui devoted to interior design. Here ecology cannot be adduced as an explanation, except insofar as a good interior design provides light and air (Gats, 2007). However, there is a rationale to the planning of offices and other public spaces. Feng-Shui experts talk learnedly of the Eight Trigrams, the flow of ch'i, and much of flow, separate employees who cannot tolerate each other, and keep people from ponding up at. In building, in North India houses are less consistently south-oriented, and the villages are set wherever they are protected from the southeast tradewinds. It can be explained by the fact that typhoon winds whirl around, so only near-complete surrounds offer much help, but typhoons usually come from the southeast, so villages tend to be sited with a hill range and northwesterly winds that are apparently more annoying there. The steady flow of wind and water past a site carries wealth and fortune away. Pooling up of air and water means pooling up of wealth and good luck. A house by a lake, river, or sea should be located to look down on currents that meet, and should avoid looking out over a straight reach where currents pass by and away. Straight roads past a village, or pointing directly to it, are dangerous. So, often, is location at a crossroads or junction or between two roads. Here, again, the problems of traffic and unwanted visitors are paramount. Straight water channels pose flood danger, and being downstream on such a channel exposes one to pollution from upstream. Poles and tall buildings can be dangerous. They attract lightning, and wind eddies around tall buildings. Poles provide too dominant and vertical a system and can mean overassertion of the wood element. The example of Singapore vividly portrays influence and impact of Feng-Shui and Vastu on modern Asian architecture: The Hilton Hotel has indoor status of two life-sized warriors. To lessen the qi, energy, which was too strong, the warriors were moved outside the hotel. The popular shopping centre of Wisma Atria is painted blue, making it look like a large aquarium. Water is good for feng shui, which is why a lot of houses and buildings have water fountains, ponds, aquariums and "waterfalls" (Harmony lies in the direction 2001). While the form of much traditional housing in India hinges to some extent on the building materials available in each particular locality, there seems little doubt that the need for thermal environmental control had a crucial influence on their design. The hemispherical arctic igloo, the thermally massive pueblo adobe house, the wind towers of the Middle East, the permeable walls and steeply pitched overhanging roofs of the traditional dwellings of the tropics-all bear witness to their builders' response to the climate of the region. Arania Community Housing in Indore (India) is the best example of modern application of old traditions and practice. Within the residential districts the houses (each with a courtyard at the back) cluster in groups of 10. Paved open spaces and paths connect the clusters to the spine which includes shopping, offices and some housing. Every 20 houses have a septic tank and water is provided to the whole area from three new local reservoirs. Electricity goes overhead to the higher income groups, underground to the poorer (Davey, 1995, p. 62). Today, critics admit that many European countries and the USA borrow and adopt Vastu and Feng-Shui practices to their environments. "In fact, Vastu awareness is increasing, and a handful of architects trained in it are beginning to practice in Europe and in North America" (Rajgopal, 2002, p. 34). These information shows that all societies exploit their environments to satisfy not only physical needs, but also social and other "intangible" needs. All societies must have ethical codes, including environmental ethics, and must have some way of persuading the majority to follow those codes even more strictly than long-term economic sense would dictate. All societies must have ways of persuading their members to sacrifice short-term, narrow interests to long-term, wide ones. Recently, several attempts have been made to understand human behavior from a socio-biological viewpoint (Cruickshank, 1998). This enterprise is based on the growing awareness that behavior, including complex behavior, can be selected in the evolutionary process. Many socio-biologists postulate a future in which they can totally explain all human behavior as narrowly determined by complex instincts. Behavior toward the environment, for instance, is seen as so instinctive that nothing we do can alter it. Fortunately, environmental behavior is not tightly determined by instinct, as most socio-biologists would now agree. Socio-biologists have pointed out that complex instincts are inefficient. It is easier to design a brain that learns and reasons. Selection on environmental behavior must be very indirect. It acts on the consequences of behavior, which are, notoriously, not always predictable from the behavior (Cruickshank, 1998). In modern India, behind many of the projects of the modern state-for example, the county development plans, the neighborhood plans, new towns, national parks, and nature reserves-lie essentially philosophical ideas which have never before been applied to the common good on this scale (Gats, 2007). If the architect is to play his full part in such projects, he must be more than a mere planner of gardens, just as the modern architect must be more than a designer of buildings. It is, for instance, becoming accepted that a modern community, whether new town or reconstruction, should have a properly organized plan in which dwellings, local shopping centers, schools and other buildings are related to one another in a convenient and orderly way, and in which there is a unified open space system in which playgrounds, walkways and gardens all have their place. In such a plan the work of the landscape architect should not be confined to the parks and gardens only; he should be available to collaborate with the architect on the preservation of existing natural features, such as streams and ponds and trees, on the linking of the parks and gardens with each other by walks and smaller open spaces, and on all the planting problems involved in the building layouts, the verges, street trees, house gardens and so on (Thapar, 2002). He should also be involved, with the architect and the engineer, in the design of street lighting, and the placing of drains and other services, all of which can make planting difficult if not impossible unless they are considered soon enough. Thapar (2002) explains that the modern designers and architectures move their offices to buildings. Apart from gaining first-hand experience of its environmental conditions, they are readily accessible to the other tenants and the building operators. One thing that has become clear is that not enough is done to brief the various tenants about the nature of the building and its environmental control before they move in (Thapar, 2002). Once the principles of its design and operation are explained, most seemed happy to accept that Feng-Shui and Vastu propose greater opportunities for healthy environmental design than traditional modern practices. They allow to construct a building in which the temperature varies slightly during the day and with the season of the year, and that they take into account the potential heat gains from office equipment, additional lighting or high-density occupancy in determining their office layout-and that using desk fans or opening the windows when the outside air is cooler than that being supplied through the grilles. It has also become clear that improvements can be made in both design and operation to optimize the interaction between air movement, heat transfer surfaces, outside weather conditions and fan power requirements to achieve the best internal conditions. In sum, modern architecture represents religious and philosophical traditions of their countries and societies (Chinese traditions are embodied in Feng-Shui and Indian values are reflected in Vastu). Construction designs and modern urban culture embodies old wisdom based on unique traditions and rituals. Feng-Shui and Vastu is more than a concept, but the whole tradition of living for millions of followers. Both approaches are based on philosophical and human values so wide that a brief definition cannot express all importance and multi-sided concepts. The facts mentioned above show a close link between religion, ethnic identity, and community. Community of culture is the main sources that allow the construction and experience of religion in everyday life. If universal laws are followed, a person can reach happiness and universal love. This view on Feng-Shui and Vastu reflects the human tendency to continue on a particular course of action until something goes wrong or a person is forced to question his or her actions. Both approaches play a role of supporters of human's values and morality. Environmentally friendly design is the main benefit of bot approaches applied to modern architecture in Asia and the West. They are based on wisdom and universal values which help people to coexist with nature and become a part of it. Both approaches are advantageous because they are based on human needs and help people of all traditions to treat any diseases with the help of mind. Bibliography 1. Cruickshank, D. 1998. Architecture and Independence: The Search for Identity - India, 1880 to 1980. Oxford and India: Oxford University Press. 2. Davey, P. 1995. Aga Khan Awards. The Architectural Review, vol 198, iss. 1185, pp. 62-64. 3. Freeman, M. 2005. India Modern. Periplus Editions. 4. Gats, K.P. 2007. Modern Traditions: Contemporary Architecture in India. Birkhuser Basel. 5. Harmony lies in the direction. 2001. The Hindu. Retrieved 10 June 2007 http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mag/2001/12/02/stories/2001120200430700.htm 6. Landscape Architecture. 2006. Architectural Science Review, vol. 49, p. 99. 7. Ninian, A. 2002. India and the Buildings of the Raj. Contemporary Review, vol. 281, pp. 1642-1644. 8. Pegrum, J. 2000. The Vastu Vidya Handbook: The Indian Feng Shui. Three Rivers Press. 9. Rajgopal, S.S. 2002. The Resurgence of Vastu Shastra - India's Traditional Science of Architecture. World and I, vol. 17, iss. 2, pp. 33-34 10. Thapar, B. 2002. Introduction to Indian Architecture: Arts of Asia. Tuttle Publishing. Read More