Healthy Buildings Have Existed in China Since Ancient Times

Abstract

The historical experience in China of constructing healthy buildings over many centuries merits even more attention today. Using the quadrangle as a basic style, buildings have been constructed in this way from ancient China to the present time. It is a style found in all areas of the country. The buildings in which people lived in ancient China were designed according to the doctrine of wind and water (which in Chinese is called feng shui). Today we would describe this as a philosophy for designing the indoor environment for healthy living. The common properties of such buildings are that of having good indoor air quality and easy maintenance of the indoor climate. This paper describes the optimal performance of quadrangle buildings from the perspective of their thermal environment, illumination by natural lighting, infrared absorption and radiation, noise and indoor air quality, insulation properties and gives a mathematical analysis of these features. While this building style is not unique to China it could be developed more in other countries. It is a healthy style of building which can serve mankind worldwide because of its natural energy saving and adopting more widely it would improve standards in building.

Empirical and quantitative studies of Feng Shui: A systematic review

“… Theories and methods developed in environmental psychology were used to examine the landscapes of the actual good Feng Shui locations in terms of reliability and validity. Taiwan (Asia) Site selection Landscape architecture Reliability, validity S E Chen, Feng, and Wang [ 27 ] 1997 To design interior environments for healthy living. Characteristics of ancient Chinese quadrangular buildings (thermal environment, natural lighting, noise, infrared absorption and radiation, and insulation, indoor air quality) Survey Quadrangular buildings provided good indoor air quality and moderated indoor temperature that improved energy-saving and building standards.…”

“…Of the included 36 articles, 19 (52.7%) were from Web of Science [ [26] , [27] , [28] , 31 , 32 , [34] , [35] , [36] , 38 , 43 , 45 , 47 , 48 , [50] , [51] , [52] , [55] , [56] , [57] ], 10 (27.8%) from Taiwan Periodical Literature [ 20 , 21 , 29 , 30 , 33 , 37 , [40] , [41] , [42] , 44 ], five (13.9%) from SCOPUS [ 25 , 39 , 53 , 54 , 58 ], and two (5.6%) from WANFANG DATA [ 46 , 49 ]. The year of publication ranged from 1996 to 2019.…”

“…A total of 12 articles (33.3%) were published in Chinese [ 20 , 21 , 29 , 30 , 33 , 37 , [40] , [41] , [42] , 44 , 46 , 49 ] and 24 (66.7%) in English [ [25] , [26] , [27] , [28] , 31 , 32 , [34] , [35] , [36] , 38 , 39 , 43 , 45 , 47 , 48 , [50] , [51] , [52] , [53] , [54] , [55] , [56] , [57] , [58] ]. No Chinese language articles were found in the period from 2001 to 2005 ( Table 2 ).…”

“…People, geographical locations, real estate data, and buildings mentioned in the 36 articles were used as study samples: 16 (44.4%) articles focused on people [ 20 , 26 , 29 , 30 , 32 , 33 , 35 , 37 , 39 , 41 , 42 , 45 , 47 , [52] , [53] , [54] ], 11 (30.6%) on geographical locations [ 28 , 31 , 36 , 38 , 40 , 43 , 46 , 48 , 49 , 51 , 56 ], four (11.1%) on real estate data [ 44 , 50 , 55 , 57 ], and three (8.3%) on buildings [ 27 , 34 , 58 ] ( Fig. 3 ).…”

Sustainable Design for Asian Housings: Traditional Culture, Lighting and Aesthetics

“…This therefore provides the customers with an opportunity to provide an input to the design according to their requirements. Also in Asia, the principles of Feng Shui would often be applied to the assessment of the built environments, both externally and internally [6][7][8].…”