The Psychology Behind Traditional Geomancy

Research area 02 of 12 · Project E

All civilizations that grounded themselves to a region and continued to build and grow developed directional guidelines for building settlements, houses and rooms. These Cultural Directives are found to bring comfort and nostalgia to the individuals that have been reared in spaces governed by them. The manner in which these codes evolved has led to two opposing perspectives; one that of naive credence leading to all manners of superstition beliefs and the other of a deep-rooted repudiation from the rational thinker.

Focus

Regions that are culturally closely knit tend to live by similar philosophies and ideologies that reflect in their cultural directives.
The philosophies are based on the intent to make life comfortable and happy. Most ideologies are based on climatological factors of the environment that can be then conquered with the help of architectural and interior design, to manipulate the psyche of the user.

Aims

To study the possible reasons for the enlisted directives.
To expand the possibilities of design within the provided 'constraints'.
To synthesize further and strengthen the foundations of design.
To revive lost knowledge in each culture in the department of design and construction.
To find the lost rationalities behind the directives that seem to emerge out of fallacies

Keywords

revival of directives
tradition
culture
social hierarchy
vastu shastra
hygge
ikigai
lagom
fengshui
hominess
gemutlichkeit
gezellegheid

Contributors: Haziel Mercy Buam, Urja Sen

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