Scientific Feng Shui for the Built Environment


Book Description

Feng Shui is not all about tradition. The integration and harmony between the natural and built environments concerning modern architecture has long been discussed in Feng Shui, or more academically, Kan Yu. Based on Scientific Feng Shui for the Built Environment: Fundamentals and Case Studies published in 2011, this enhanced new edition has further taken into account the enhancements and new inputs in theories and applications. Emphasis is placed on two themes, sustainability and science. New case studies regarding sustainable design as viewed from a Feng Shui perspective, and integrated applications of different architectural models and their associations with Feng Shui concepts are added and elaborated. On science, other than exploring the new development of particle physics in relation to Feng Shui studies, a totally new approach to numerology and Luo Shu study based on modern linear algebra may bring readers new insight into the possibility of researching Feng Shui mathematically, in addition to the use of spherical trigonometry. This book offers a remarkable in-depth view of Feng Shui by integrating the historical theories with scientific explorations and examples of applications. It once again demonstrates that Feng Shui can be studied scientifically, and eventually scientific Feng Shui may become a new field of science in the academic world as well as a professional and orthodox discipline of architectural design for the built environment. Published by City University of Hong Kong Press. 香港城市大學出版社出版。




Research in Scientific Feng Shui and the Built Environment


Book Description

Feng Shui is a body of ancient Chinese knowledge that aims at creating a harmony between environment, buildings and people. It represented the most significant set of architectural theory and practice in Chinese history. Feng Shui knowledge reflected the traditional Chinese attitudes towards the natural and built environment. With a desire to improve the relationship between human and the environment, there is an increasing interest for architects, building professionals and other property practitioners to apply the concepts of Feng Shui in building design. As Feng Shui knowledge represents a holistic view in creating harmonized built environment, research into the application of Feng Shui to the built environment needs to be addressed.







Architect's Guide to Feng Shui


Book Description

Cate Bramble has devoted her career to highlighting the differences between 'feng shui-lite' as a fashionable pursuit in contrast to the original intentions of the Chinese masters. Here she presents the authentic principles in a technical, no-nonsense pocket book specifically for architects. As clients become more demanding and the competition for projects heats up, the architect is well advised to have many strings to their bow. This practical guide includes line illustrations that present the principles of feng shui, the Chinese art or practice in which a structure or site is chosen or configured so as to harmonize with the spiritual forces that inhabit it, and their application in architecture through planning principles, services, building elements and materials, in an accessible, easy reference format. The feng shui-savvy architect can also benefit from feng shui's ability to match structures and land, and the peculiar capacity of authentic feng shui to forecast development-related concerns including cost overruns, quality issues - even worker injuries and trade disputes! The author explains feng shui from archaeological sources and evidence of practice in the east, contrasting it with what passes for feng shui in the west. She analyses the practice in terms of such concepts as western systems theory, viewshed, space syntax and the 'pattern landscape' theory of urban planning. For the first time, the Sustainable implications of feng shui design are explained with reference to the latest developments in behavioural and cognitve sciences, evolutionary biology and other western viewpoints.




Eco-Architecture VII


Book Description

Comprises a collection of papers presented at the 7th International Conference on Harmonisation between Architecture and Nature, this volume reviews the challenges and new opportunities of contemporary architecture. These papers cover the results of advances in design and new building technologies, as well as the development of new materials. Many of the changes are motivated by a drive towards eco-architecture, trying to harmonise architectural products with nature. Another important issue is the adaptation of the architectural design to the natural environment, learning from nature and traditional construction techniques. Never before in history have architects and engineers had such a range of new processes and products open to them. In spite of that, the construction industry lags behind all others in taking advantage of a wide variety of new technologies. This is understandable, due to the inherent complexity and uniqueness of each architectural project. Advances in computer and information systems, including robotics, offers the possibility of developing new architectural forms, construction products and building technologies which are just now starting to emerge. Changes have also taken place in the way modern society works and lives, due to the impact of modern technologies. Patterns of work have been disrupted and changed, affecting transportation and the home environment. The demand is for a new type of habitat that can respond to the changes and the consequent requirements in terms of urban environment. The papers contained in this book deal with topics such as building technologies, design by passive systems, design with nature, cultural sensitivity, life cycle assessment, resources and rehabilitation and many others including case studies from many different places around the world. They will be of interest to architects, engineers, planners, physical scientists, sociologists and economists.




Five Classics of Fengshui


Book Description

In Five Classics of Fengshui Michael Paton traces the theoretical development of this form of spiritual geography through full translations of major texts: the Burial Classic of Qing Wu, Book of Burial, Yellow Emperor’s Classic of House Siting, Twenty Four Difficult Problems, and Water Dragon Classic. This theoretical development is analysed through the lens of history, philosophy and sociology of science in an attempt to address Joseph Needham’s conundrum of the "great beauty of the siting" in traditional China being based of such a “grossly superstitious system” and to understand what part fengshui played in the environmental history of China.




A Pattern Language


Book Description

You can use this book to design a house for yourself with your family; you can use it to work with your neighbors to improve your town and neighborhood; you can use it to design an office, or a workshop, or a public building. And you can use it to guide you in the actual process of construction. After a ten-year silence, Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Center for Environmental Structure are now publishing a major statement in the form of three books which will, in their words, "lay the basis for an entirely new approach to architecture, building and planning, which will we hope replace existing ideas and practices entirely." The three books are The Timeless Way of Building, The Oregon Experiment, and this book, A Pattern Language. At the core of these books is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets, and communities. This idea may be radical (it implies a radical transformation of the architectural profession) but it comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people. At the core of the books, too, is the point that in designing their environments people always rely on certain "languages," which, like the languages we speak, allow them to articulate and communicate an infinite variety of designs within a forma system which gives them coherence. This book provides a language of this kind. It will enable a person to make a design for almost any kind of building, or any part of the built environment. "Patterns," the units of this language, are answers to design problems (How high should a window sill be? How many stories should a building have? How much space in a neighborhood should be devoted to grass and trees?). More than 250 of the patterns in this pattern language are given: each consists of a problem statement, a discussion of the problem with an illustration, and a solution. As the authors say in their introduction, many of the patterns are archetypal, so deeply rooted in the nature of things that it seemly likely that they will be a part of human nature, and human action, as much in five hundred years as they are today.




Blue-Green Infrastructure for Sustainable Urban Settlements


Book Description

Zusammenfassung: Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI) is now recognized as beneficial in terms of maintaining water flows and thermal comfort in urban areas. A framework of ecosystem services for urban settlements may be instrumental in bio-physical benefits as well as social and psychological benefits that will be assisting in adaptation and mitigating adverse effects of changing climate. Cities in developing countries, where the land cover is undergoing rapid transition, are characterized primarily by urban characteristics at the expense of natural ecosystems. The book aims to provide a state of the art of Urban Resilience and Sustainability linked to blue-green components of the urban environment. The challenges and opportunities in adopting the blue-greens as next generation infrastructure, particularly in the context of rampant urbanization and changing climate are also one of the focal areas of the book. The book also deals with multilevel community and stakeholders' participation in developing and managing Blue-Green Infrastructure in urban centres of developing countries. Currently, the focus of researches in urban ecosystem is moving towards exploring the role of blue-green components in ameliorating the negative consequences of urbanization and changing climate. This book bridges the knowledge gap between the existing understating of the role of blue and green infrastructure separately and in integration in city planning, particularly in mitigating and adapting to changing climate and environmental pollution




Embracing Complexity in the Built Environment


Book Description

First Published in 2008. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.




Feng Shui: Teaching About Science and Pseudoscience


Book Description

This book provides a richly documented account of the historical, cultural, philosophical and practical dimensions of feng shui. It argues that where feng shui is entrenched educational systems have a responsibility to examine its claims, and that this examination provides opportunities for students to better learn about the key features of the nature of science, the demarcation of science and non-science, the characteristics of pseudoscience, and the engagement of science with culture and worldviews. The arguments presented for feng shui being a pseudoscience can be marshalled when considering a whole range of comparable beliefs and the educational benefit of their appraisal. Feng shui is a deeply-entrenched, three-millennia-old system of Asian beliefs and practices about nature, architecture, health, and divination that has garnered a growing presence outside of Asia. It is part of a comprehensive and ancient worldview built around belief in chi (qi) the putative universal energy or life-force that animates all existence, the cosmos, the solar system, the earth, and human bodies. Harmonious living requires building in accord with local chi streams; good health requires replenishment and manipulation of internal chi flow; and a beneficent afterlife is enhanced when buried in conformity with chi directions. Traditional Chinese Medicine is based on the proper manipulation of internal chi by acupuncture, tai-chi and qigong exercise, and herbal dietary supplements. Matthews has produced another tour de force that will repay close study by students, scientists, and all those concerned to understand science, culture, and the science/culture nexus. Harvey Siegel, Philosophy, University of Miami, USA With great erudition and even greater fluidity of style, Matthews introduces us to this now-world-wide belief system. Michael Ruse, Philosophy, Florida State University, USA The book is one of the best research works published on Feng Shui. Wang Youjun, Philosophy, Shanghai Normal University, China The history is fascinating. The analysis makes an important contribution to science literature. James Alcock, Psychology, York University, Canada This book provides an in-depth study of Feng Shui in different periods, considering its philosophical, historical and educational dimensions; especially from a perspective of the ‘demarcation problem’ between science and pseudoscience. Yao Dazhi, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China