http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/21/HOFKT0DS6.DTL&hw=Feng+shui&sn=001&sc=1000
http://tinyurl.com/2zgeyz
An ancient design philosophy from the East that stresses achieving harmony
between home and body is finding its way into the United States. Feng shui?
That's been done. Bay Area, get ready for vaastu shastra. A design framework
that comes from ancient Indian Hindu scriptures, vaastu at its heart is the
belief that one's environment is a physical extension of the body, and that
home design can affect a person's health. Vaastu is a science, not an art,
religion or philosophy," says Liz Jan, a home designer who recently moved from
San Francisco to New Mexico to deepen her study of vaastu. Vaastu design is
undergoing something of a renaissance in India and remains better known there
than in the United States. But anyone familiar with green building techniques
and the more-recognized feng shui may be surprised to learn how much vaastu has
in common with them."The idea behind vaastu is to orient rooms toward different
positions of the sun at different times of the day, being
mindful of the quality of the sunlight and not just the level of solar
energy," says Anthony Lawlor, an architect at Polsky Perlstein Architects in
Larkspur and the author of "The Temple in the House: Finding the Sacred in
Everyday Architecture." "Ideally, the rooms would be like spokes of a wheel, so
that you are harmonizing your activities with the sun's energy," Lawlor says.
In a practical sense, that means orienting the dining room toward the south, so
that the intensity of the sun's rays at midday assists in digestion; quieter
rooms such as bedrooms should be placed to the north where the lower evening
light prevails. Positioning a house to take advantage of natural sunlight is
something green builders have long touted as an environmentally friendly design
principle. Michael McCutcheon is the president of McCutcheon Construction in
Berkeley, a company that incorporates both green and vaastu principles in its
design work. "Green builders are using vaastu without
knowing it," says McCutcheon, who learned about vaastu as a practitioner of
Transcendental Meditation and spends a lot of time at environmental building
conferences. "The rishis in India were the ones who recognized the rhythms of
nature; the green building movement should recognize the shoulders on which it
stands." Beyond an affinity for natural light, the quality of materials is key
for both vaastu and environmentally aware builders. "There is wisdom in the
materials," Lawlor says. "If you use wood, stone or plaster, the building
quality is different than if you design a building using vaastu principles and
then use toxic or synthetic materials."Both Lawlor and McCutcheon have spent
time in the city considered the heart of American vaastu design: Fairfield,
Iowa. It is the home of Maharishi University of Management, founded by
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who founded the TM movement. In Fairfield, McCutcheon
says, many of the new buildings have been designed from the ground
up based on the principles of vaastu. This has prompted controversy because it
meant tearing down existing structures to build new ones that, for example,
have entrances facing east. Pandit Pravinji, an astrologer and vaastu
consultant in Antioch, says that when it comes to vaastu design and an existing
home, "You just can't do everything. But if the home you live in is, say, 70 to
75 percent balanced according to vaastu, you will still get good results." In
selecting his own home, Pravinji notes that some aspects of the existing layout
were very favorable, such as the morning sun that streams into his kitchen at
breakfast time, and the room where he performs his puja, or daily worship. And
he has furnished the home carefully in accordance with vaastu principles to
lend it a feeling of spaciousness and quiet: painting the worship room blue to
promote meditative calm, for instance. Still, says Pravinji, if he could change
one thing about the house, "I would move my master
bedroom. It is not in the southwest corner where it ideally should be placed.
But I try to be flexible and not worry too much."In the Bay Area, it's not easy
to find a building - residential or commercial - that has been torn down and
rebuilt according to vaastu principles. More often than not, people are
interested in fixes for an existing home. If they're lucky, as Pravinji was,
their homes might (mostly) conform to vaastu principles without having been
designed that way. Otherwise, McCutcheon says, they will be limited to the
quick fix, which can limit vaastu's effectiveness. "There's no evidence that
people are knocking down their homes," McCutcheon says. "Rather, they're
tinkering with it. Feng shui is actually a much better way to tinker with a
building," he says, because it is more flexible than vaastu, which demands a
rigidly prescribed geometric and compass-point approach. "And there's no doubt
that feng shui works," McCutcheon says. "But the maharishi would say
that you're better off knocking down a building with poor design and starting
again." Lawlor agrees: "Feng shui always offers a cure, like hanging a mirror
or a crystal. That's appealing to an American mind-set."The majority of
McCutcheon's work is in renovation, not new building. But when meeting a new
client, he says, "I bring up vaastu when I'm looking at a house for the first
time. I consider the orientation as I draw up the designs. Can we move the
kitchen from the west to the southeast corner? I know that the study is best in
a northeast corner, and I take that into consideration."Those sorts of
deliberations often are at odds with city building codes, sloping lots and
modern inventions such as plumbing and electricity - not to mention aesthetics
and views. Lawlor, who works in Marin, says, "Everybody wants the views. If
someone wants their living room facing Mount Tam and vaastu said that's not the
optimal space, what do you do?" Marti Kheel needed to rebuild
because of dry rot in the deck of her El Cerrito home. A writer and health
consultant, Kheel is just learning about vaastu and believes that a person's
health is influenced to a great degree by the energy in his or her home. She
says vaastu remains a fairly obscure practice for most people in the Bay Area.
"Everyone here has heard of feng shui, but mention vaastu and people go blank,"
she says.Kheel contacted McCutcheon, who is rebuilding her deck using
dragonboard, construction panels made in China from a combination of magnesium
oxide and magnesium chloride and fibrous reinforcement.Kheel acknowledges that
vaastu principles sometimes clash with her own tastes: "I had a beautiful
wooden headboard with spokes on it - you're not supposed to have spokes on your
bed," she says. (Vaastu experts believe they can be disruptive to sleep.) "So I
bought a new bed of sustainable wood and I couldn't stand the way it looked!"
She's on the lookout for a bed that will conform both with
vaastu and her personal tastes, but sometimes finds the process difficult.
"Now that I consider vaastu, everything takes longer," Kheel says. "I think
about the materials and design of the objects, and their energetics. Even
importing the dragonboard from China - I wish I could find something closer to
home that would have the same properties."Among Bay Area Indians, vaastu
remains primarily the bailiwick of the older generation. Deepak Ajmani, who
owns the Bombay Spice House in Berkeley, says, "The modern generation? Either
they don't know about it, or they don't care." Ajmani, who offers a selection
of vaastu books in the astrology section of his store, believes that the
transience of the American lifestyle is a factor. "People here live a suitcase
life. If you're renting an apartment, you can't make the changes that vaastu
recommends." He said vaastu is getting more attention in India these days, and
he sees many of his local customers purchasing the statues and items
recommended for vaastu cures.Hari Johan, who is affiliated with the Hari Om
Mandir (temple) in San Mateo, agrees. "Older people carry these practices; now
it is our job to teach them to the younger people," he says. Johan is looking
for a new temple site and said that vaastu is extremely important to him in the
site selection process. "That's the time to use vaastu - when you're building a
house," Johan says, because only then can a person be sure that the orientation
and materials are in pure alignment with vaastu principles.Johan's friend
Chhabildas Khatri, proprietor of Roopam Sarees in Berkeley, says that on a
recent visit to India, he noticed more interest in vaastu than before. As a
landlord, he has twice been asked to move the toilet in his properties by
tenants who complained that its unfavorable placement was affecting their
business. "Both times I moved it - once for a property in India and once in the
U.S. - and it ended up making a big difference for my
tenants," Khatri says, though he adds that he himself is not convinced that
vaastu delivers.Still, in the United States, publishers are taking note of
vaastu - occasionally with a slightly different spelling. Two new books,
"Vastu: Transcendental Home Design in Harmony With Nature" by Sherri Silverman
and "Space Matters: Use the Wisdom of Vastu to Create a Healthy Home" by
Kathleen Cox, were released last month. One has only to count the number of
yoga mats strapped onto backs in San Francisco to glimpse vaastu's future.
Yoga, too, was once considered an obscure practice from India until its health
benefits became more widely understood. It's possible, with the growing
awareness of the advantages of environmentally friendly house design, that
vaastu is poised to go mainstream.
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