Landlord Longford Business Centres calls in the feng shui experts in a bid to attract an occupier to a difficult-to-let office space. Adam Tinworth reports.

A brief spell in the property market in the Far East would surprise most cynics. There, the feng shui consultant is an much a part of the professional team on building projects as the architect or site manager.

But can this ancient Chinese art offer real benefits to the UK property industry?

While many people have welcomed the principles of feng shui into their homes, carefully placing furniture, art, mirrors and plants to have the maximum beneficial effect on the environment, it has yet to be warmly embraced by the business community.

Longford Business Centres had a problem. A suite in its Hanover Square serviced office was proving problematic. It had let only once – and that was six months ago. Could a feng shui analysis solve the problem? The Feng Shui Partnership agreed to examine the suite and do its best to make it let.

Even in a business centre which has a fashion company among its tenants, the feng shui consultants stand out. Both are casually dressed. One has long hair, while the other looks like surfer.

Kenny D’Cruz, the long-haired one, worked in marketing before becoming involved in healing arts and feng shui consultations. His colleague, Kristian Pengkerego, specialises in identifying and releasing natural and artificial stresses from the environment.

Many feng shui principles are based on the diea of flows of chi energy around a space. People are aware of this subconsciously, and it affects how they react to it.

Both D’Cruz and Pengkerego claim to have been born with the ability to “sense” these lows more acutely than most, they work all over the country, giving consultations in workplaces and in people’s homes.

LBC director Jane Gwillim-David shows the pair around the building before escorting them to the problematic space. “It feels fine,” says D’Cruz after inspecting the suite. “No funny stuff here.”

However, it is clear to everyone that the room just is not attractive, for one, Estates Gazette’s photographer admits he thought “yuck” as soon as he entered.

After a brief inspection, the pair sit down to interrogate Gwillim-David and manager Maria West.

“Has anything bad happened here? Bailiffs, major stress or office affairs?” asked D’Cruz. The room had been occupied by solicitors, but neither Gwillim-David nor Wet were able to relate any useful tales.

Then, as D’Cruz probes further back into the building’s past, Gwillim-
David mentions that Danny La Rue used to store his costumes here. “That’s almost two people, one of them hiding, the other a public mask. An energy from that means something,” suggests D’Cruz

Since the brief let, Longford has been using the room as a show suite. “And had anyone walked in and said ‘we’ll take it?’ asks D’Cruz.

“No,” admits Gwillim-David.

D’Cruz them probes the Longford team on exactly who they wanted. “Someone who doesn’t complain,” jokes West.

Chat over, D’Cruz and Pekgkerego take a close look at the room. Pengkerego checks the hallway outside and notes that the chi energy flow goes straight past the door and out through a fire escape at the end of the corridor. He mulls over various ways of solving the problem.

Meanwhile, inside the suite, the first and most obvious problem is that the suite is not a perfect rectangle – one area is missing, splitting the energy flows around the room. “We need to reclaim that space back and get it working again,” suggests D’Cruz.

The pair suggest that Longford puts up a large picture, with a metal frame. This will “open up” the missing space. The windows are another problem. The view is terrible and energy is just being bled out of them.

A mirror is placed between the two windows, to reflect energy back into the room. “I’m not sure about those curtains, though,” muses D’Cruz.

D’Cruz swivels in the room, tracing the energy flow through the front door, to the right, before it dies in a corner. Pekgkerego suggests a painting with a downhill view on the dead wall as one menas of reinvigorating the chi energy there. Instead, a plant is moved from one corner of the room to stir up the dying energy. “Pointy plants say ‘get out of here before I poke you’,” say D’Cruz.

This triggers a flurry of furniture moving as the pair realign the desks, flowers and desk ornaments to open up the office. They feel that the original arrangement was too rigid, segregating the two halves of the room.

This is the first step that really makes a difference. When Gwillim-David returns to the suite after doing some business elsewhere, she is impressed by how much bigger and more friendly the room feels.

However, the boys are not done yet. A heavy ceiling beam slices across the room. The pair tut-tut. The beam is, apparently, “bearing down” on the room. The solution? Simply round off the edges of the beams.

“Could we use beading?” asks Gwillim-David. “Anything, just so long as the edges don’t come to a point any more,” explains Pengkerego.

Satisfied, the twosome sit down to divide further changes into first priorities and a second tier, to be carried out of it the suite still fails to let. The priorities are:

• Rounding off or beading the ceiling beams;
• Hanging a mirror between the windows;
• Putting a logo on the wall opposite the door;
• Placing a metal-framed picture on the “missing” wall.

The second-tier priorities are:

• Putting a sign below the fire exit sign;
• Hanging a smaller painting in the dead corner.

Gwillim-David and West enthusiastically agree to do the shopping, although Gwillim-David remains unconvinced by the feng shui. “At the time I was fairly sceptical,” she explains. “We made the suggested alterations, some of which I liked the others I was not sure about.”

Over the next fortnight, things seemed to be going well. Other suites let. “Within the two-week period after we had carried out the alternations, three suites came up,” says Gwillim-David. “All let almost immediately. The prospective clients were all shown the feng shui suite.”

Then, in mid-February Longford hits the jackpot. The suite finally lets. “It let to Merrow Training for a period of one year. We were obviously delighted,” says Gwillim-David. “In fact, we had two other companies wanting to take it and Merrow arrived before 9am to pay their deposit to ensure they got it.”

“Despite my initial reservations, I would consider taking advice on a whole business centre,” says Gwillim-David. “Our next centre opens in Cardiff in April, so it is well on the way to being fitted out. However, we are rolling out another 10 centres in the next 18 months and I may ask them back to look over a building before any fit-outs works are started, time permitting.”

However, she’s not completely converted. “Obviously, any Feng Shui arrangements suggested would have to be balanced by the commercial realities of using a building as a business centre,” she says.