There are 4 waves or aspects that I feel encompasses the exciting & pioneering field of green sustainable building. The first wave is where most people are aware of sustainable design as an aspect of saving energy. The second wave is where more people are understanding that there is also an aspect of how design can include healthy, non-toxic use of materials and air systems. The third wave includes an awareness of invisible EMF and electrical toxicity and how to design for this. The fourth wave and in some ways a much less known aspect, is how to design buildings to work with invisible environmental energies and how to enhance the vibrational frequencies in a pro-active & protective manner.

Click here to read about The First Wave – Green, Sustainable Building as Saving Energy.

Click here to read about The Second Wave – Creating a Healthy Buildingt

Click here to read about The Third Wave – Designing with EMF (Electro-Magnetic Frequency) & ELF (Electrical) awareness.

The Fourth Wave – Higher Vibrational Frequency creates buildings with greater harmony.

Everything that is matter is also energetically connected, is always in a state of change and whether you are aware of it or not, your environment also carries a variety of frequencies which can also be understood as levels of consciousness. Understanding how to work with different energetic & invisible vibrational frequencies allows one to restore balance and harmony for all parties concerned, whether it is for restoring balance to the environment, both externally on the land or internally in a building, or energetically for a person or a large group of people. It is the process of creating a beneficial energy environment in a home, office, or on the land, designed to support you, your family, and/or your employees, etc. Detrimental subtle energies can be assessed such as the energies associated with some underground water streams, geopathic stress lines, electromagnetic fields (EMFs), and other possible energies such as cosmic rays, psychological, or a variety of unusual, spiritual types, of energies. Once these energies are discovered, with various tools and techniques they can be transmuted into beneficial energies and the environment is reorganized into a healthier, more harmonious balance.

The fourth wave is how to design in an energetic and/or scientific & ‘Feng Shui’, type of ‘healthy’ approach. Working with an awareness of how math, vibrational frequencies, geopathic lines & water patterns, sound, colour, harmonic proportions, sacred geometry and shapes can affect space and how you feel in that space. You can actually feel calmer, and think with greater clarity & concentration in these spaces. There are less arguments, disagreements and thus a greater harmony can be created that affects the people who co-habitate in relationship in this space. This also, as a byproduct, can increase immune systems, productivity, sales, etc. A number of different modalities that utilize an approach that addresses these issues are slowly filtering through our western society from the East.

There are century old traditions that have evolved, been lost as well as are currently being reclaimed with greater degrees of sophistication by various different branches or sects from India, China, Tibet and Egypt. These ancient arts are slowly coming back and being incorporated more & more initially in the remediation of current spaces as well as being included in building design from scratch.

In the Hindu, Eastern tradition from India, Ancient Vaastu Architecture as a very sophisticated & more exact science, is currently being re-claimed through the brilliant work of Dr. V. Ganapati Sthapati, the world’s most eminent Vaastu architect. Another term for Vaastu is Ayurvedic Architecture. The Buildings are designed with an awareness of how they can influence our emotional & physical health and spiritual & material prosperity. Mayonic Science is based on the universal laws of authentic Vaastu Shastra. This science is now finally being taught in North America (www.aumscience.com) to enable designers to create built space through the use of precise scientific principles and mathematical formulas which are inherent in all creative activities that take place in nature. Although it is best for new building and not very easy to apply to remediate existing structures.

Vaastu understands and has developed a science to work with the ‘morphogenetic field’, or the ‘energy which was before matter and out of which all matter consists’. Using highly developed mathematical principles they know how to manipulate matter through pre-physical energy, or the zero point energy. It can be a profound and sacred experience to walk through a Vaastu designed building. You can completely feel the difference as soon as you cross the threshold. It has been reported that fires, earthquakes or intense hurricanes or Tsunamis completely go around these buildings, leaving them standing as if nothing happened.

“If a part of free space is isolated and confined into a four walled structure called a building, it becomes a living organism and the space enclosed will start vibrating in a particular order. If such a building is designed to vibrate in the same numerical order as that of the indweller, the resultant phenomenon is that he will experience harmony or perfect union with the Universal Self (Quantum Field)”

-Dr. V. Ganapati Sthapati

Traditional Chinese or Tibetan Feng Shui, roughly translated as “Wind – Water”, has been around for over 5,000 years. Wind is associated with intention and water is action. Intention is also thought of as goals and water is acting on those goals. So the basis of Feng Shui is intentionally arranging our environment to help our goals manifest. There are about 600 various sects or schools, however the six major schools of Feng Shui are; the Form School, Yin Yang Theory, Five Element Theory, The Flying Star School, The East-West School, and the Black Hat Tantric Buddhism Sect. The different schools have varying degrees of sophistication and training methods from 2 day weekends to years long trainings to specialized, intuitive or shamanic or ‘magical’ types of teachings.

“Feng Shui is based on the awareness that an electromagnetic energy flows around and through your body, linking your energy to others, objects and forces in the universe”.

- Sharon Stasney, The Feng Shui Training School in Salt Lake City, Utah

In a number of these schools, there are four major principles to begin using Feng Shui: Chi; Yin and Yang; The Five Elements; and the Bagua Map. Defined as the ancient art of Chinese placement, Feng shui provides blueprints and advice for creating the proper the flow of energy in your space. The positioning of many objects are based on the patterns established by yin and yang and the flow of chi, which together create positive and negative effects. An equal representation of male and female energies (Yin and Yang) is sought to create a balanced environment. Everything in the environment falls into either the Yin or Yang category, Yin being female and Yang equaling male. An example of Yin energy is things that are small, dark or heavy; Yang energy is big, bright and light.

Feng shui uses colors, symbols, flowers and furniture placement to create a smooth pathway for chi in a home, office or retail space. Negative energy is removed or counteracted in order to encourage auspicious energy and welcome progress. Colors and shapes related to the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal and water) are used to enhance movement, balance and protection. Home accents such statues, photographs and paintings are carefully chosen and placed to promote positive energy.

The feng shui map is known as the ba gua (ba: eight; gua: area). It indicates which areas of your life are governed by particular areas of your living or work space. The ba gua is usually depicted as an octagon with eight sections surrounding a central area. Together with Center, the nine areas include: Career or Life journey; Wisdom; Health and Family; Wealth and Prosperity; Fame; Relationships; Children and Creativity; and Helpful People and Travel. Every space has its own ba gua; there is a ba gua for land, house, and even one for each room within your home or apartment.

Some Feng Shui schools also work with ritual and ceremony, empowering their students through the spiritual transmission from their lineage Masters. This ‘transmission’, similar to how Reiki energy healing is taught, gifts the students with the ability to intuitively know how to work with healing bodies as well as spaces. Rigdzen Chodon Rinpoche (Madi Nolan), a Tibetan Lama and Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine (DCM) is one such teacher (www.whitelotushealing.ca). She has started a school called the White Lotus Healing based in Seattle, Washington. She travels around the world teaching this craft and is authorized to pass on these teachings, empowerments and initiations from the White Cloud Monastery in China. Individuals are called initiates in the “Stream of Wisdom” of the Blue Buddha’s which includes the transmission of memory of all of the masters who studied these traditions for the past 800 years. The lives of Initiates go through a “Quickening”, where positive outcomes are a daily experience and miracles come to pass.

In Egypt, Architect & Scientist Dr. Ibrahim F. Karim has been developing the science of Biogeometry over the past 30 years (www.Biogeometry.com). Biogeometry, is a kind of Egyptian Feng Shui, but much more sophisticated. Biogeometry works with the energy principles of how resonance and harmonic relationships affects energy through geometric shapes, colour, sound, motion and vibrational frequency to be able to balance biological (human, animals, plants, land) energy systems. Based on the Physics of Quality, Biogeometry integrates the energy manifestations understood in the universal laws of esoteric spiritual knowledge with science. Dr. Karim has developed tools based on sacred geometry principles that can transmute detrimental energies and/or amplify highly beneficial and natural energy qualities. BioGeometrical shapes have three primary vibrational qualities:

1. A Negative green colour & sound frequency.

2. A higher harmonic of ultra-violet colour & sound frequency, and

3. A higher harmonic of gold colour & sound frequency.

Incorporating the French science of Radiesthesia (which was discovered originally in Egypt), Dr. Karim has developed several sophisticated dowsing tools to be able to detect or calibrate with greater precision the various frequencies of different vibrational energies. It is an incredibly fascinating science that is being reclaimed from the knowledge that the ancient Egyptians already knew thousands of years ago. Radiesthesia uses the vibrational fields of the human body as a link to be able to access information on levels that we cannot visibly see or hear.

Similar to Vaastu, Biogeometry works with an understanding of Quantum Physics and how the ‘zero point energy’ and matter is formed first in the ‘pre-energy’ spiritual field. With Biogeometry an existing space can be remedied to balance & transmute all detrimental energies and enhance beneficial energies. But to be able to design using the principles from the beginning creates an even stronger and higher vibrational frequency. The science of harmonizing the energy of the environment with Biogeometry principles appears to create a greater balance in the energy field of the body which also allows the body a greater ability to be able to heal itself or simply live in a greater harmony.

“Similarly as with air so it is with vitality, emotional, mental and subtle spiritual energies, all these energy types exist in the space around us and give the space qualities that are constantly affecting and being affected by our energy system. The Architect as the sculptor of space should have the knowledge and the tools to work on all those levels. It is therefore essential that we expand our design language to include the necessary criteria to interact with all these energies.”

- Dr. Ibrahim F. Karim

Different cultures have developed the science of working with these invisible energies that can profoundly affect and change your experience of your space as well as how you operate in the world. They are all simply different facets of the truth that makes up a greater truth with even more possibilities of increasing variety and combinations.

Buildings can become more sensual, relaxed – to the eye, to the body, to the environment and there can also be a whole consciousness that can be ‘sung’ into the building as workers work with joy & love as they build! Consciousness through sound/toning/chanting/song can affect & change the vibrational frequencies of all matter, material, building components, completely. Any material type can also follow the mathematical principles of Vaastu. So why not experiment a little, integrating other modalities with, for instance, the new, highly sophisticated, Biogeometry dowsing tools, that can now allow us to test for different frequencies so we can know what creates a higher or lower vibration and see what new architecture can be created?

Buildings can actually enhance the consciousness of the individuals living in them and we can heal people not only with hands on methods to the body, but also through building actual buildings that can enhance healing profoundly and truly affect your ability to receive or work with new information and thus be able to be more expansive, creative, balanced and harmonious.

A building that incorporates all 4 of the Waves of a Sustainable, Healthy and Harmonious Building Design are generally of a higher quality, more comfortable, safer, quieter and can require less maintenance. They are also more durable, and can incur lower monthly operating costs!

Designing in a 4 Wave Healthy approach will ensure that you have the best building possible to optimize & enhance your health & well being on ALL levels!