Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa March/April 2020 | Page 43

T
he diversity of the real estate and property sector
allows one to immediately change their initial
property investment goals to what the sector and
market demands. Like with Feng Shui, dating back to more
than 6000 years ago, which used to orient buildings in
an auspicious manner. It is now an extensively practiced
methodology aimed at harmonizing people with
environments, and ensuring that personal well-being and
profitability is maximised. Feng Shui means wind water.
What is Feng Shui?
Dating back over 2,500 years, Feng Shui, ‘the way of wind and
water’, is the ancient Chinese art of arranging buildings, objects,
and space in the environment to create harmony and balance.
The proper design and arrangement of these energetic
qualities is believed to promote wealth, health, creativity, and
positive relationships.
Working with life force energy, its properties Yin and Yang, as
well as its eight constituents including the Lake, the Mountain,
Fire, Water, Heaven, Thunder, Wind, and Earth, Feng Shui has
been used to improve cities, places of business, and individual
houses around the world.
The Feng Shui way
Once the sole domain of Chinese emperors, Feng Shui has
flourished as an art, attracting the attention of many successful
entrepreneurs including US President Donald Trump, Bill Gates,
Richard Branson, and The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick.
In a column about Feng Shui for The Star in 2016, Branson
wrote, ‘Providing a harmonious environment is a good idea for
any business. You can work anywhere, but it can be easier in
suitable, stimulating surroundings.’
After consulting Feng Shui Masters for the development of
Trump International Hotel & Tower at Columbus Circle in New
York, Trump told the New York Times, “It’s just another element
in which you can have the advantage over your competitors.”
New York’s Trump International Hotel & Tower is just one of
many famous buildings that draw on the principals of Feng
Shui. Other Feng Shui triumphs include the Sydney Opera
House in Australia, and the Louvre in Paris.
A tale of two factories
One of South Africa’s leading manufacturing brands,
Twinsaver, invested R450m into a new manufacturing facility
that compelled the then Group CEO, Garth Towell, to consult
an international Feng Shui master. The result was a start-up
factory with world-class performance. This was the official
introduction of Towell to Feng Shui.
The manufacturing factory worth R450m was already under
construction when Towell was introduced to the true practice
of Feng Shui. In a reunion with an old school friend and
internationally renowned Feng Shui Master, Christos Bouloutis,
Towell noticed how Feng Shui was often misunderstood,
misrepresented, and underestimated.
With one established factory in operation and the new
factory under construction on the East Rand property in the
Gauteng Province, Towell systematically walked the premises
with Bouloutis. As any Feng Shui master would do, Bouloutis
was looking at the morphology of the surrounding mountain
peaks, the river nearby, and the building itself. Because as
Bouloutis explains, energy is moved around by wind and water,
and that energy can either be favourable or disastrous.
In fact, according to Bouloutis ‘The energy coming over the
mountain into your front door can be powerful enough to
either make you a multi-millionaire or eventually kill you.’
While Feng Shui has sadly been reduced to plastic frogs
with coins in their mouths, reduced to a gimmick. Feng Shui is
a largely hidden practice that works with the unseen life-giving
forces that surround us, a practice that proves itself over and
over again.
After thorough talks between the Feng Shui master and the
project management consultants and construction engineers,
the master’s concern was safety. According to the master there
are inevitable accident hotspot zones on the site. Signifying
the importance of making sure that the safety measures are
implemented all the time.
Although it wasn’t quite the mountain they needed to
move, it was the doorway. Or more precisely, the doorway in
relation to the mountain. In Feng Shui, a doorway is the mouth
of the building and it is imperative to pull in the right energy.
The current doorway was angled towards the mountain in a
way that it brought a ‘poison’ into the building, much the same
way the existing factory did, which at that time was plagued
with issues.
‘When you have people entering a building from the
direction of the mountain and you have a river behind the
property, you’ll find yourself leaking money, losing efficiency,
dipping in productivity, and beset with accidents, strikes, and
staff issues.’ says Bouloutis.
The new construction now stands with an entrance at the
riverside, meticulously balanced with the inflow and outflow of
the surrounding mountains, the landscape has been shifted in
places to control the flow of water, and even the staff had been
allocated the most auspicious workstation locations based on
their own person birth charts.
Because the intricate layers of Feng Shui take into the
account the ‘human factor’ too. Towell says his own personal
experiences with the practice have collectively been a powerful
symbol of how things work in unison.
Towell says, ‘It’s not about something magical, it’s about
technical design. And I have seen the results.’
In fact, this particular start-up factory, with its multi-million
rand imported machinery was identified by the manufacturer
as the most successful startup worldwide in terms of both
efficiency and productivity. To this day, Towell maintains that
the new facility is a proven example of how Feng Shui elements
can result in significant outperformance.
SA Real Estate Investor Magazine MARCH/APRIL 2020
41