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FLOW OF RICHES? RiversEdge at Port
Imperial in
Weehawken faces the water,
which feng shui deems auspicious for making
money.
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I am going to exercise my bragging rights and mention that Alex Stark, who is quoted in the article, is one of my Feng Shui (and shamanic) instructors from my days as a student.
If you want to change your life around, Feng Shui is a very good way to go. It taps into universal Chi and creates a connection between us and the benevolent energies that are there to help us. When you do Feng Shui you awaken those forces for good to pay attention. It's an organic alchemy. (Intro to Feng Shui) -S.C.-
Thanks to Maureen
By Jill P. Capuzzo
for nytimes.com
THE crystals have been buried, and the mirrors are so completely
embedded in the building surface that they are barely visible. Yet they
and other features often associated with the practice of feng shui are
being incorporated into the design of several buildings going up along New Jersey’s Hudson waterfront.
Respect has grown apace with the understanding of feng shui, a
traditional Chinese discipline of aligning buildings and interiors in a
way that will produce harmony and success for their inhabitants. It is
even starting to find a critical mass of converts among developers,
architects and designers in places like New Jersey’s “gold coast.”
Beyond being a valuable marketing tool in an area with a sizable
Asian-American population, professionals in these fields say, it is
proving especially useful when linked to smart design and eco-friendly
living.
“Even if you’re not familiar with the history of feng shui, or don’t
care about the energy and spirituality of feng shui, we’ve learned that
it’s a very thoughtful approach to great design,” said Lisa DeLove, the
interior design director for the Roseland Property Company. “There’s a subconscious rhyme and reason of why a space works, whether you feel good in this space or not.”
Roseland, the developer of the Port Imperial project spanning three
towns on the Hudson waterfront, as well as 99 Hudson, a 1,000-apartment
complex in Jersey City being built in partnership with Hartz Mountain
Industries, has become a convert.
When feng shui principles began to be applied on the $2 billion Port Imperial project five years ago, Roseland hired Alex Stark,
a feng shui expert. Rather than waiting until the end of the
construction process to add a few token touches to the completed
apartments, the developers had Mr. Stark at the table from the
beginning, seeking his input on orienting the buildings in relation to
the adjacent river and highways, designing the lobbies and corridors,
and situating the amenities. Ms. DeLove acknowledged that convincing the
executives at Roseland of feng shui’s value had been “a learning
process.” But she added, “By the end we were enlightened.”
“Roseland was skeptical at first,” recalled Mr. Stark, a native of Peru
and graduate of the Yale School of Architecture who in the last 20 years
has focused on feng shui exclusively. “They did it just to market to
the large Korean and Chinese community in Weehawken. Then they started
to notice a pickup in sales patterns. Not only Asians but everyone else
was buying.” The 236 rental apartments in RiversEdge, the one completed
Port Imperial building incorporating feng shui, are 98 percent occupied,
according to Dan Burns, a Roseland spokesman.
Some aspects of the Port Imperial site were already “feng shui
positive,” like plans to face all the buildings toward the water — a
placement considered most auspicious for those seeking to make money.
Other factors posed a problem, like the fact that the complex would back
up to the Palisades, which Mr. Stark said was “not so great for
family.” Still, in feng shui there are ways to counterbalance the
negatives. Mr. Stark recommended that builders bury crystals under the
buildings’ foundations and add fish-eye mirrors to their exteriors to
neutralize the bad energy from the steep mountain.
Lately Mr. Stark, who also serves as the feng shui consultant for Whole
Foods Market stores, is advising Roseland on plans for 99 Hudson, a site
that his preliminary analysis revealed was “decent for money, but very
good for career.” He also performs land blessings for groundbreakings,
and consecrations when a building is completed, recommending the most
auspicious dates to hold these ceremonies, based on the astrological
calendar that guides feng shui. While acknowledging that such rituals
may once have belonged to “the 30 percent of feng shui that I thought
was really wacky and out there,” Mr. Stark said he had come to respect
all aspects of the discipline.
Roseland is not the only developer on the feng shui bandwagon. Last month, when the Ironstate Development Company and the Kushner Real Estate Group broke ground on 18 Park, an 11-story rental building in Jersey City, they hired Feng Shui Manhattan to help plan the setting for its 422 rental apartments and the Boys and Girls Club of Hudson County’s new headquarters.
As Joshua Wuestneck, Ironstate’s senior vice president for development,
put it, “We saw not only how the feng shui principles resounded with the
Asian population, but also a subtle linkage to green building concepts
that our overall marketplace is interested in.” To that end, the feng
shui consultants have suggested using natural finishes in the lobby;
they have selected a chandelier that Mr. Wuestneck said “distributes
positive energy,” and even helped pick the building’s address. (As it
occupies a full block, the developers had a wide range of numbers to
choose from; they settled on 18 because it is lucky in feng shui
numerology, Mr. Wuestneck said.)
When dealing with clients less open to such concepts, some designers and
architects employ the concepts without the feng shui label. Bogna Pro, a
partner in Sky Architects in Riverton, says she treads lightly when
suggesting feng shui-driven solutions to troubles she might recognize in
someone’s home — and thereby someone’s life.
“It’s a very intimate way of thinking,” said Ms. Pro, a native of Poland
who has spent years teaching herself the concepts of feng shui, “and
people tend to be very much on guard. Everyone wants to put on the best
face, but if there’s a problem, feng shui is going to find it.”
Like other feng shui practitioners, Ms. Pro acknowledges that its tenets
parallel some of the design principles she learned in architecture
school. Those similarities allow her to incorporate the ideas using what
she calls “more Westernized language.” One example she cited was a
project for a client in Palmyra who was adding a bedroom over the garage
in his house. He said he wanted something that flowed well from the
rest of the house, so her firm designed an entryway with a curved wall —
which he loved. In feng shui terminology, she said, she would have
described the design as “softening the corner so that the energy could
flow smoothly into the room.” But feng shui never came up.
People come into a place and “feel something is imbalanced but they
can’t pinpoint it,” she said. “They talk about the flow of the place
being off. We’re not saying the flow of energy, but that’s what it is.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/realestate/new-jersey-in-the-region-gold-coast-developers-warm-to-feng-shui.html?_r=1&smid=fb-share
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