Five Deficiencies, Five Abundances

The most portable idea in the whole book

A house can be diagnosed by proportion. Five things drain it: a big house with few people, a big gate with a small interior, broken walls and courtyards, a well and stove in the wrong place, and much land with few rooms and a sprawling yard. Five things fill it: a small house with many people, a small gate with a large interior, whole walls and courtyards, a small house with many animals, and a water channel running south-east.

Notice what this actually is. It is a set of ratios — people to floor area, gate to interior, built area to open ground. None of it requires a compass, a birth date, or a belief. You could hand this list to an architect and they would understand every item.

The chapter closes with a caution against expansion for its own sake: a house that is gradually prospering should not be abandoned for a grander one, and building to fit the number of people in the household is what brings long life. Build for the life you have, not the life you are imagining.

If you want one idea from this classic to use today, use this one.