For over 4,000 years, the art of feng shui has been practised across China. Simultaneously a science and an art form, the age-old geomancy claims to improve health, wealth and happiness through the manipulation and adaptation of our environment. Based on the principle of yin and yang, feng shui teaches that our internal and external environments are intrinsically linked. The laws of feng shui aim to create balance and harmony in a given space, in the hope that this will be reflected in its occupants.

Paul Sin operates PSA Consultants, a feng shui consultancy based in Shanghai. Prior to this he worked for 22 years as an electrical and mechanical engineer with the Shui On Group, providing both expert feng shui advice and engineering for the company's many real estate and commercial building projects throughout Hong Kong and mainland China. Through his work, Sin successfully combined the principles of feng shui with architectural efficiency and attractive design. He believes the positive effects of feng shui on business can not be underestimated. “It really does have impact on the performance of a building,” he explains. “Good feng shui – positively designed – will bring prosperity and health to the people who work or reside within.”

Today, growing numbers of businesses, including Western-owned companies, are turning to feng shui as a means of increasing productivity and profits, and improving staff relations. “Western people are often highly educated and quick to adopt new knowledge and culture,” says Sin. “Many of my clients are French and English. They get what they expect – or at least some positive improvements – after feng shui is applied, so it is becoming more popular in the West through the praise of these experiences.”

For all its life-changing positivity, feng shui does have its limitations. Sin admits that there is often a disparity between good architectural design and proper feng shui – one invariably will suffer. “It is true that good feng shui design may not be matched with good architectural design,” he says. “Which one takes priority is the decision of the developer.” Sin gives Shanghai’s Shui on Plaza as an example of a building in which feng shui requirements have taken priority over architectural design. Yet despite its prevalence in Chinese culture over the centuries, Sin believes very few buildings in modern China possess good feng shui qualities. “There are no buildings nowadays with excellent feng shui design, because no sites possess the optimum conditions,” he explains. “At present the most well known building with proper feng shui design is the Beijing’s Forbidden Palace.”

Belief in the power of feng shui to bring success to a business is so ardent that, in extreme cases, office premises have been vacated and even demolished for being considered inauspicious. “The poorest feng shui designed building was the Shing Pao Building in central Hong Kong,” says Sin. “But it has been demolished and rebuilt because it was too bad for companies or the owner to keep for business.”

While still a firm believer in the potential of feng shui to transform businesses into overnight successes, Paul Sin makes it clear to audiences at his corporate seminars that feng shui is not fail-safe. “Some or most people think feng shui is a pseudo-science or superstitious culture,” he says. “It is not a superstition, but I do ask audience members not to fully rely on feng shui – it can only improve life for the individual by a maximum of 30 per cent.” For many businesses, it would seems as though such a positive boost is worth the price.