Water
The element of winter and the north: the deepest, quietest phase. In a room it is darkness, reflection, the irregular line, and the sense that something is moving beneath a still surface.
Descending and flowing
The idea
Water is where the whole discipline begins. The oldest surviving definition of feng shui, in the Zangshu (Book of Burial) attributed to Guo Pu in the fourth century, says that qi rides the wind and scatters, but is retained when it encounters water. Wind disperses; water holds. The name of the practice is these two things.
Its trigram is Kan: one solid line between two broken ones, a current between banks. It belongs to the north, to winter, to midnight and to the middle son. Its qualities are depth and danger together: the abyss and the well.
In a room
Water is the darkest colour in the room, the mirror, the glass table, the curve that breaks a grid of straight lines. It is also the room’s quietest corner. Classical practice keeps actual water (fountains, aquaria) out of bedrooms; contemporary designers agree for practical reasons, humidity, noise and maintenance, and use dark blue, glass and reflective black instead.
In the northern hemisphere a north-facing room receives the coolest and most even daylight, without direct sun. This is why painters wanted north-facing studios, and why the tradition reads north as a place of stillness and inward work.
Balance
Metal makes Water; Water makes Wood. Earth controls Water; Water controls Fire. A room with too much Water, dark, glassy, cold, is brought back by Earth’s warm matte surfaces and by Wood’s green.