Readers may have read in our book, Scientific Feng Shui for the Built Environment: Fundamentals and Case Studies, published four years ago, that both Chinese and western cultures have always contemplated the harmony between the mankind and our surrounding environment; the natural environment in ancient times, and the built/natural environment today. Modern architecture has become increasingly concerned about the integration and harmony between the natural and built environments as "green living" seems to be the hottest contemporary topic. Terms like environmental protection and management, energy conservation, renewable energy, sustainability and ecology etc. have been pouring into our ears on a daily basis. In fact, all these concepts are not new from an ancient Chinese point of view; this study in the past was called Feng Shui or Kan Yu more academically, a traditional Chinese wisdom aimed at creating harmony between the environment (both referring to the sky and the earth), buildings and people. It is a philosophy which has influenced traditional building design in China for thousands of years.
In the western world, the popular conception of Chinese Feng Shui is the practice of doing the right thing at the right place, at the right time and with the right style. The original ancient Chinese term for this study was Kan Yu; the term Feng Shui is (in Chinese historical terms) a relatively recent nomenclature. ?Kan? refers to the observations of sky and climate and ?Yu? refers to investigations of the landscape and geography. The expression "Feng Shui" was first used in the classic text The Book of Burial published in the Jin Dynasty, some 1,700 years ago. In direct translation, "Feng" simply means wind while "Shui" means water. Our books could certainly tell you the scope of Feng Shui is much broader, in terms of dimensions of consideration, detailed contents and the methodology.
Traditionally, Feng Shui comprises of two schools, namely the Form School and the Compass School. However, the principles and practices of such important schools of thought are complicated, leading to considerable misunderstanding and confusion. To bring Feng Shui out of the shadow of superstition, it is essential to use a scientific approach to the study of this controversial subject. Basically, the notion of "Scientific Feng Shui" has two implications: the verification of Feng Shui principles scientifically, or the study of Feng Shui logically in a scientific way and by using scientific methods.
Since 2005, a series of international conferences on Scientific Feng Shui and the Built Environment had been organized at the City University of Hong Kong and it was moved to Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany from 2010 onward. The history of development of this series is detailed in this book and you may be surprised that the origin of this series could date back to September of the year 1997 when a Feng Shui workshop was held in Brisbane organized by both of us.
The aim of the conference series is to provide an international platform for exchanging research findings between scholars in scientific Feng Shui for the benefits of the built environment. In order to reach the worldwide research communities, thirteen high-quality articles selected from the first three years' conference proceedings were compiled into Research in Scientific Feng Shui and the Built Environment, edited by both of us with additional annotations, and published by City University of Hong Kong Press in 2009. Immediately right after publication, we received concerns from readers that such book is a collection of research articles, and demanding a publication that explains Scientific Feng Shui from basic concepts. Such encouraging feedback led to the writing of Scientific Feng Shui for the Built Environment: Fundamentals and Case Studies, also published by City University of Hong Kong Press in 2011 to explain fundamental terms, concepts and theories of different schools of Feng Shui, and to explore the nature of a scientific approach to Feng Shui study, illustrated by numerous case studies.