Curves & Waves & Angles, Oh My! — More Feng Shui Views of Big Buildings

The simple curve here represents the element Metal.

A simple curve represents the element Metal, but more complicated curves (like waves) represent Water. The two buildings discussed in this article are across the road from each other in Honolulu, specifically in the Kaka‘ako Ward area, right near the building I discussed in Part Two of this blog series. The building in the foreground of this photo, the A‘eo project, has a simple curve at the corner. It’s repeated sixteen times in the open awning. This gives the building the symbolism of Metal (plus the awning is made of metal).

The tall building across the road, the Anaha, is about as wavy a building as I’ve ever seen. The waviness combined with the blue-tinted glass give the building a very strong Water element.

You might say this pool is spreading the wealth (water) around the neighborhood.

There’s a lot of cantilevering going on in the building and that’s a feng shui problem signifying lack of support. Not so good for the residents, but the outside corners of the buildings have no sharp right angles — so it’s a great building to have as a neighbor because it does not create poison arrows.

The cantilevered pool (the bright, pale blue spot jutting out, just below the center of the photo, in case you can’t tell) is quite striking, and would be more so if they allowed skinny dipping, but in addition to the cantilever problem discussed above, there’s the fact that it’s water protruding out. Water represents money, so the symbolism is that money/wealth is leaving the building. It’s the same issue when a building has a fountain with the water flowing away.

The positive way to look at this situation is that the wealth is going out into the neighborhood, helping everybody. (That’s the way I describe a lot of the fountains around the buildings in downtown Honolulu when I give my feng shui walks.)

In addition to the wavy tower, the Anaha complex also has a shorter component (seen in the foreground of this photo) that seems to have very good feng shui. The main element of the short building is Earth because of the strong horizontal design elements. Also, there are no cantilevers so it feels very grounded and supported.

The designers meant this pattern to represent wind, but in feng shui, the curves represent water.

Here’s a look at the punched metal screens of the A‘eo building. The folded screens are placed in a wavy pattern, which the building designers intended to represent wind patterns. (An a‘eo is a Hawaiian bird.) However, there is no feng shui element for air or wind (as there is in some cultures) so the design instead represents water from a feng shui point of view. The Water element is added to a building that already has two other elements represented — Metal (because of all the exposed metal) and Earth (because it’s basically a horizontal building).

In the background of the photo, you can see the tower portion of the A‘eo project, which is almost completed. That building has very little going for it, feng shui-wise. There’s some cantilevering going on, plus it’s not very friendly to its neighbors because of the sharp right angles at the corners. And, as it that wasn’t enough, sharp angles jut out from the sides of the building causing even more poison arrows.