There is a community called Park La Brea in a section of Los Angeles, which from aerial views has a geometric “yantra” design in a pattern of converging streets.

This is an older neighborhood, where the first phase was built in Period 4 (1924-1943) and the second phase was built in Period 5 (1944-1963.)  The X-shaped towers were built between 1948-1951 according to historical records. Park La Brea can be a challenge for Flying Star School feng shui practitioners because there is a gray area where some of the one-story apartments and duplexes may have a nebulous construction date.

With the X-shaped towers, there are four wings and this alone means there could be eight different orientations within the building. The ends of each wing could be considered four more and there could be units near the middle that face the same as the lobby side or opposite. This means that there might be fourteen different possible facing sides.

Some practitioners view every apartment as having the same orientation as the building, but you can see from this example that any unit facing the same direction as the building is in the minority.  Determining the facing for the entire building boils down to the main entrance/lobby side.  Most of the time, the facing side of an individual unit is the main view/balcony side (and not the entrance door side).

When looking at the aerial view, the X shape is like a star where you get a sense of the energy from the center spreading out through the “limbs” of the architecture. This is not the most stable shape for a building, but at least the individual units inside are stable rectangle shapes.  This matters because when people have feng shui problems, it’s usually only serious when there are compounding issues. Just one design flaw rarely ruins the whole space.  There is nothing inherently bad about any shape in terms of symbolism. It has everything to do, rather, with how shapes of architecture and interior-lay-out directs a path of Qi (air currents.)

 

Some people can handle living in an odd-shaped building. Often, it is the more creative types.  Park La Brea is nestled in the West Hollywood/Hollywood area of Los Angeles, close to the Studios and the hub of the entertainment industry. No doubt there have always been up-and-coming artists and musicians gravitating toward this community. My most recent client living there is a professional make-up artist. Twenty-eight years ago, I briefly dated a man who lived there, an attorney turned yoga teacher and another client in the Towers was a psychic.  It is across the street from the world-renown Grove Shopping center.

Normally, I don’t recommend living in a really odd-shaped building, even if it is architecturally stimulating.  And normally I don’t’ recommend someone live higher than the third floor. This is because the magnetic field gets weaker at each higher level. The flying stars get a little less predictable and responsive, the higher one lives “in the air.”

That said, there are still other features and redeeming influences to assess and compare. There is actually a pretty good feeling at Park La Brea as a whole, a little oasis amid the hustle and bustle of all the other surrounding neighborhoods.

Author: Kartar Diamond

Company: Feng Shui Solutions ®

From the Architecture and Design Blog Series