BRIMMING WITH ‘CHI’

BRIMMING WITH ‘CHI’
Energy rushing into BIA


A38-km drive, negotiating traffic snarls, bottlenecks, and a narrow trumpet interchange, brings you to the much-spoken-about Bengaluru International Airport. As you arrive, you get an aerial view of a large area, consisting of car park, bus/taxi stand and space for some activities which seems to be coming up in front of the terminal building.
According to the ancient Chinese practice of geomancy, or Feng Shui, the placement and shapes of natural features, buildings and furniture can have positive or negative effects on ‘Chi’, or life energy. This applies to airport, which are like the country’s ‘front door’. It not only reflects the tradition and culture but should also generate warmth.
The terminal building — which is the ‘mouth’ — is a simple structure, clad in deepgreen glass with multiple entry/exit points. The building faces South (precisely South of Southeast) at 169 degrees.
The ATC tower, located towards the South-Southwest sector of the terminal, is the tallest structure and qualifies as good Vaastu. The small mountain range towards the North-Northwest sector of the property, far across the runway, brings support to the airport; this design is referred to in Feng Shui as classic armchair design. The main runway is on the East-West axis and land towards the West-Northwest is elevated when compared to the East-Southeast sector. This signifies a bit of disorder.
The concept of Feng Shui has been adopted in many popular airports, especially in Southeast Asian countries. Taoyuan International Airport (Taipei), Beijing International Airport Terminal 3, Hong Kong Airport are some airports where Feng Shui principles were followed, primarily to bring in sunlight, pleasant feel, harmonious atmosphere and a sense of serenity. Despite being the second-most-delayed airport in the world, Beijing airport’s new terminal places a premium on air, light, greenery and water features. The sloping roof evokes a dragon, with triangular skylights resembling scales. Feng Shui principles were incorporated into the design, and the interior is decorated in colours that hold special meaning.
The BIA terminal’s roof is wavy, drawing in incidental light as the windowpanes are along the N-S axis. The waiting area in the departure lounge gets direct sunlight. The space between the main door and the check-in counter, however, appears to accumulate excess Chi energy. Controlling this with the right decor would make things more comfortable and soothe ruffled feathers of passengers and airline staff.
Many technical issues need to be looked into when designing an airport, like orientation of runway in terms of wind, terrain, positioning of terminal building, fuel storage yard; incorporating Vaastu or Feng Shui in the design is a challenge. However, many other aspects, including decor, can create the right energy. Placing child-safe water features, adding greenery to slow down the energy rushing in through the main door towards check-in counters and other critical areas, suspending vertical cloth banners, which could depict places of interest and act as baffles to impede the energy, are some solutions to create a better feel.
The departure lounge could benefit from accentuated lights in specific areas (up-lit), tall plants, small landscaped area with water curtains to disperse the feel of stagnation while waiting for long hours. The shopping areas in the departure lounge are quite harmonious and circular, which controls the Chi energy. This could be further enhanced with indoor hedges.
The exterior will benefit from a creative water feature with metal artefacts. Flowering plants bearing yellow and purple flowers, especially for entry roads and front lawns, would gather up pools of surrounding Chi energy.
From a general perspective, more chairs in the waiting area of the departure lounge and realignment of acoustics would help. Introducing a ‘barrier-free’ facility for the disabled, floor-tracking to guide the blind, reserved seating area for senior citizens and the disabled would be more passengerfriendly.
Anything new needs time to settle down, and continuous improvements could be made through a combination of aesthetics, creativity and logic to generate a feel-good factor. Till then, all we can do is follow our timetested mantra, “Swalpa adjust madkoli”.
— S BS Surendran MASTER FENG SHUI CONSULTANT AND TRADITIONAL VAASTU PRACTITIONER