Interiors and Feng Shui

This building was presented as the first entirely Feng Shui building in the Southeastern United States.  The construction materials were chosen with care, they had filtration systems in their air conditioning, they introduced systems to sort and recycle various types of refuse within the building, all at a time when there was no generalized awareness for any of these concepts in the U.S.

My first visit was in 2007 at the request of an apartment owner who wanted to know if it was possible to change the layout to better suit her needs and living preferences.  At the time, the construction had just reached her floor and the outside and bearing walls were already there, but the rest was a blank canvas.  If I worked quickly, much could still be done.

While I had already worked on several renovations myself, this was the first time that I could impact the layout from the start, and I relished the challenge.  In addition to her preferences, such as a closed kitchen, I could also see that three concepts could be greatly optimized: flow, light and storage.  This is when I first realized my ability to optimize open spaces and how naturally it came to me to visualize what they could become.

The master bedroom was unnecessarily large for her purposes, eating into the general living space.  By giving it a slightly smaller size, still very spacious, the entire living room in which she and her family spent most of their time together became larger and brighter, and I could easily incorporate a media unit.  With this slight change, I also increased the access to the view, which made the living room all the more enjoyable to be in.

As requested by my client, I switched the location of the office versus that of the guest suite, and edited the doors and bathrooms accordingly, while keeping the water outlets where they already were.  Throughout, I added a significant amount of storage space, while increasing the light and space of the living areas.

This building was the dream and brainchild of an acupuncturist who had managed to raise enough funds to build this very healthy and environmentally friendly condominium.  When he saw the plan as I had redesigned it, he said that he wished he could have seen it earlier to change the flow of the other apartments.  Indeed, I just found out that other units on superior floors included my recommendations within their own layouts.