Anne Bavier, owner of Bavier Design in Stamford, has seen feng-shui parallel green for growth and is pulling profits from turning the office water cooler into a babbling brook.
“I started in New York City,” said Bavier.
Bavier has been in the industry for 25 years and owned her own firm for five.
Before starting her company, Bavier was a partner of the Phillips Group, now known as TBG Architecture. She also ran the company”™s Greenwich location.
Bavier”™s first project was not for a company, but for a $45 million house in Greenwich.
“It allowed me to open my firm, but I immediately went back to doing what I do, which is corporate interiors and architecture,” said Bavier.
Since then, Bavier has been utilizing feng-shui, throughout her projects.
“How I got into feng-shui was through a project with Greenwich Hospital,” said Bavier. “They wanted me to do a fertility clinic and I looked at it and said, ”˜Boy, nobody”™s getting pregnant here.”™ It was so sterile, so boxy and so dull.
Bavier pursued the idea of using the same amount of money, but applying the ideas of feng-shui.
“I was self educated on it,” said Bavier. “I read every book I could get my hands on. It”™s all about bringing curves, indirect lighting and fluidity into a place.”
Bavier said the common sense of feng-shui has been utilized throughout Europe for years.
“In many places in Europe you have to be within 25 feet from a window, because it really makes you work harder and feel better,” said Bavier. “That”™s directly related to feng-shui.”
According to Bavier, natural materials are also good feng-shui, as well as being appealing to clients because of the environmental advantages. She said low-VOC paint, the use of cork, grass cloth and rice paper all reflect how the green movement is the paralleling of feng-shui.
“It”™s not so much recycling as it”™s just the use of things that are pure and natural; I think planning is the most important thing,” said Bavier. “In the end, it”™ll go to the bottom line. The place people work is very important; it helps them to work harder and they want to come to work and just feel better in a space. If doesn”™t cost them any more, why not?”
Bavier has found that the financial institutions scattered through Fairfield County, many of which rely at some point on an element of uncertainty, leading many times to stress as well as superstition, have pursued feng-shui as an element of balancing work place negativity.
“If a space is organized well and feels good they”™ll work harder,” said Bavier. “At some point, it becomes self-fulfilling, like a placebo.”
According to Bavier, feng-shui principles can become very specific and at sometimes can verge on fanatically precise, but at the heart of the practices is the idea of spending your work day in a positive environment.
“It”™s good in health care, but all of the hedge funds and financial firms are all requesting it,” said Bavier.
Bavier said OpHedge Investment Services in Rye Brook, N.Y., is one of many companies to embrace Bavier”™s feng-shui services in every facet of its headquarters.
“If you have sharp edges around. it can be intimidating and that reflects,” said Bavier. “Many people don”™t know why they don”™t like the space they work in; but it”™s probably because it doesn”™t have good feng-shui. Things like lighting can be so important to the bottom line.”
