FUNG SHUI, AN INTRINSIC WAY TO ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN WITH ILLUSTRATION OF KAT HING WAI
IN THE NEW TERRITORIES OF HONG KONG
DAVID LUNG*
In modern society where our environment is largely dictated by economy and technology, much of the deep meaning in places and placemaking has been lost. Scientists, psychologists, sociologists and environmentalists have repeatedly warned us of the danger of alienation from nature, from other men, and more drastically, from our inner self. What Alvin Toffler wrote in Future Shock, published in 1970 is no longer shocking to us; instead, the symptoms have become real societal sickness. Rapid industrial developments and acceleration of social changes have created what Toffler calls a ‘new throw-away culture': our relationship with things is more temporary; with human beings, more transient; with our environment, ‘nomadic.’ Too much is happening too fast. In expressing his strong anguish that human value is being eliminated by technology, Rene Dubos, a distinguished microbiologist, pathologist and Pulitzer Prize winner, protests by saying that "[s]cientific technology is presently taking modern civilisation on a course that will be suicidal if it is not reversed in time." He finds no excuses in affluent societies where, although resources are ample, human values are still neglected by establishments concerned with self-interests only. "[The institutions base their] choices and decisions on technological means rather than on human ends; [their] criteria are power, efficiency of production, and quantity of consumption, rather than the quality of human life." "Yet... productivity and efficiency have no value in themselves; they have merit only as means to ends.” Therefore, in viewing modern architecture, he deplores that "apartment and office buildings [in particular] have nothing to communicate beyond efficiency and conspicuous wealth, hence their architectural triviality." Indeed our buildings today are so utilitarian that human
* Mr. Lung is a practising architect in Hong Kong. This article is excerpted from his M.Arch. thesis Heaven, Earth and Man: Concepts and Processes of Chinese Architecture and City Planning. Oregon: Centre for Environmental Research, 1978.