The land a house sits on is like a chi container that holds chi from the external environment in which the residents can tap on.
It can either hold chi properly or inefficiently, hold a lot of chi or just a little, hold good auspicious chi or bad chi that should be avoided, etc.
And one of the important criteria for assessing land is looking at it’s shape.
If you are unsure about the shape of a land, just use Google Maps or a drone to take a look.
Technology has made things so simple these days. And I have no qualms with recommending them. I remember the old days when I’d go to an elevated place to view a piece of land from a bird’s eye view, or having to refer to the street directories and tourist maps. I’m thankful for the tech available today right from my fingertips.
I’m sure those who insist that they only practice classical feng shui would say that classical text don’t say anything about Google Maps and drones, and would advise you not to use them. 😀
Square land
Among the various possible shapes of land, square-shaped land is the most suggested form in feng shui due to the balance of chi it brings.
A square land parcel or lot shape also denotes earth, which is symbolic of stability and strength like a mountain.
When implementing the bagua energy map or flying star natal chart onto the premises, a squarish plan also means that each directional sector would also have more equal areas to each other.
This can be especially desirable for space planning.
Take note that we are referring to the land here, not the floor plan of a house. A house sits on a portion of the land area.
Technically speaking, a square can only be a square if all 4 sides are of the same length, and all 4 corners are exactly 90 degree angles. So those who like to nit-pick at everything would always have a reason to say that you are wrong to judge that your land is square. But I can assure you that if from one look at the map you can tell that a piece of land is square, then it is evaluated as square in the practice of feng shui.
Rectangular land
Rectangular-shaped land are the most common for all types of commercial and residential property. It a shape that represents wood.
Even though it’s not the most balanced shape compared to square, it is considered balanced enough.
On top of that, a squarish house can easily be built on such a land shape without having it look out of place.
In fact, a vertical rectangle can allow a house to be built towards the back, which in turn allows a homeowner to create a bright hall palace right in front of the house within the premises.
For example, a vertically aligned golden rectangle land plot can allow a house of the same scale to be built horizontally towards the back and allow a bright hall in front of the house for landscaping.
Horizontally aligned land mass don’t allow the construction of an open space in front of the house, but allow that to be done on one or both sides of the house.
While this is not the best orientation, it allows a homeowner to enhance the left dragon and right tiger which is a basic concept of land form.
If you know what you are doing, you can actually customize both side of the house to ensure that the dragon and tiger are auspiciously set up to benefit the property.
For vertical rectangled land, the left and right side of the property is very much out of your hands, and might even be under the control of your neighbors on both sides if it’s a terrace house.
A rectangle ratio of 1:2 is generally alright. 1:3 would be pushing it. While anything more than that is considered too odd-shaped and would belong to another category which will be discussed later.
Triangle land
Many people would laugh at hearing this term spoken. But it’s actually very common to find property built on triangle-shaped land.
It’s just that we don’t often take notice of them.
The first thought that comes to mind for any feng shui master when seeing a triangular shaped house or land is usually the fire element.
One can expect residents to be temperamental and families can often be in disharmony.
It would bound to have missing corners and what types of adverse effects would befall a household living on it would depend on orientation and which trigrams fall into the missing areas.
In addition, unless it’s a perfectly symmetrical triangle, at least one corner would be pointing at a specific directional sector of the property.
This essentially puts the trigram in that area under attack of the sharp corner. Leading to bad luck on the aspects that the particular trigram represents.
Circle land
We don’t often find round-shaped land as they are very rare.
And when we do find them, they are usually used for some type of landmark building…often of spiritual or historical significance.
They are not recommended for residential properties as energy at the center of the circle, or the eye, can be quite intense.
Trying to feng shui a house on such a piece of full circle shaped land can be a huge challenge.
I’d advise homeowners who are facing such issues to seek the help of a master instead of doing DIY feng shui.
Semi-circle land
A semi-circle shaped land would have one side with a line and the other side a curved line.
They are generally fine and because of the shape which is representative of the metal element, can be good for people with careers or businesses related to the water or metal element.
Landowners intending to building their houses of such land should take note that when the option is open, the house need to be at the square area of the land. Not the curved area.
The facing, or facade, of the house can face either the curved or straight area.
It shares the same attributes as oval shaped land, or those that are semi-oval.
Long land
It was mentioned earlier that rectangles that have a proportion ratio of more than 1:3 should be classified under another category.
And that is the long-shaped land. Sometimes called oblong.
It is generally not ideal to build a long house on a long land.
Like chopsticks, the longer a house is, the weaker it’s physical integrity would be.
Such a land might not be able to capture Qi efficiently… and might only serve to filter it.
If you must build on such a land, then consider building separate houses on them so that each house occupies it’s own segment of squarish land.
Trapezium land
The word trapezium is not often found in terms we see and use every day. But improvements built on trapezium land is actually very common.
It’s just that we often don’t realize it until we get an aerial view of the real estate in question.
When building a house of this type of land, the preferred orientation is to have the narrower side at the front of the property so that the wider area goes to the back.
This is a simply feng shui concept and can also be observed in symbolic feng shui such as the wealth vase where the mouth is small and the body wider.
This is so that the land is able to keep and retain chi more efficiently.
An inverse orientation where the front of the house is wide and the back of the house narrow can be like a regular water basin where the surface area is wide and the bottom narrow. It is easy to spill everything all over the place.
L-shaped land
L-shaped land share the same big feng shui problem with triangle-shaped land in that there would inevitably be missing corners on the premises.
It is recommended to demarcate the land and possibly build two different buildings sitting on two rectangular blocks of land.
U-shaped land
U-shaped land is rare.
When the u-shape problem is present, it most often is with u-shaped houses rather than u-shaped land.