"No compass. No questionnaire. Just your front door."
This is a distinct method from the free and Expanded methodology page and from ProperQi™ Match -- named here on its own, never blended with either. It uses BTBBTB Short for Black Sect Tantric Buddhist Form School -- the specific tradition behind the $29 Floor Plan ProperQi™ Score. Unlike the whole-home Bagua used on ProperQi™ Match (oriented to true compass directions -- see "Bagua" above), BTB orients its nine-zone grid to your floor plan's own front-door wall, no compass reading needed. It's Form School, not Compass School (see both above), and reads a floor plan's fixed room layout rather than any one person's directions. The older of Feng Shui's two major traditions, focused on the physical shape of a site itself -- nearby water, hills, roads, and the building's own shape. FengShuiIQ's free and Expanded ProperQi™ Score are built on Form School principles applied to real map data. The other major tradition, focused on precise compass directions and how they interact with a specific person (via their Kua number) or a specific point in time (via systems like Flying Star). ProperQi™ Match, the Bagua overlay, Tai Sui/Sui Po, and Flying Star are all Compass School methods.
The Nine Zones (BaguaBaguaAn 8-sided (plus center) map of a home's overall footprint, where each of the 8 outer sectors corresponds to a different life area -- wealth, relationships, career, and so on. FengShuiIQ divides a home's footprint into a 3-by-3 grid using true compass directions to check how completely each sector is actually built out.
Full glossary →)
ClassicalA 3×3 grid divides your home into nine zones, each traditionally associated with an area of life -- a cultural mapping the tool uses to organize the layout, not a forecast:
- Wealth & Prosperity -- Xun, Wood
- Fame & Reputation -- Li, Fire
- Love & Marriage -- Kun, Earth
- Family & Health -- Zhen, Wood
- Health · Tai Chi (center) -- Earth
- Children & Creativity -- Dui, Metal
- Knowledge & Growth -- Gen, Earth
- Career & Path -- Kan, Water
- Helpful People -- Qian, Metal
The center (Health · Tai Chi) isn't one of the eight compass trigrams -- it's the calm "heart" of the home, and Form-School tradition wants it kept open, light, and uncluttered.
How your Bagua map is built
ClassicalThe map is built in a fixed order, no compass or questionnaire involved:
- Start at your front door. In BTB Form School, the front door is the "mouth of chi," where energy enters the home -- the single anchor the entire map is built from.
- Find the wall it sits on. Your front door sits on one of your home's four walls -- the "entrance wall." This is the piece that replaces the compass: instead of asking "which way is north," BTB asks "which wall do you walk in through." The whole grid is squared to that wall.
- Lay the nine zones, always the same way. With the wall fixed, the grid drops on in one consistent orientation every time: standing in your doorway looking in, the near row (the side you enter) is always Knowledge · Career · Helpful People, left to right; the far row opposite you is Wealth · Fame · Love; the middle row is Family · Center · Children. The grid never flips or mirrors -- it only rotates as a whole to match your wall.
- Your gate, the zone you enter through. Because your door sits on the entrance wall, it can land in only one of three zones, the "three gates": Knowledge on your left, Career dead center, Helpful People on your right -- decided entirely by where along the wall your door sits.
Finally, the score reads only physical features it can see in the plan -- the home's shape, what greets the front door, how chi flows through it, and where draining rooms (bathrooms) and the kitchen sit relative to each zone. It starts from a base of 70 and adds or subtracts for each factor below; the deltas always sum exactly to your score.
Where a room's real footprint is traced -- an angled wing, a bay, a cut corner, any room that isn't a plain upright rectangle -- its zone read follows that traced shape, not a simplified box around it. A room split across a zone boundary is credited to each zone in proportion to how much of its actual floor area falls there, rather than being assigned wholesale to whichever zone contains most of a bounding rectangle.
Shape & Extension
ClassicalCommanding shape. A corner carved out of your home's completed rectangle (an enclosed notch) reads as a "missing" life-area for whatever zone it falls in -- a penalty scaled to that zone's traditional weight, down to −12 at most. Without a missing corner, a tight, regular rectangle is fully "commanding" (+3); a more irregular footprint (an L or multi-wing home) earns less, down to a neutral 0 for a highly irregular or sprawling shape.
Auspicious extension (provisional, pending Feng Shui master review). A modest projection beyond the main rectangle into a favorable zone (Wealth, Fame, Love, Career, or Helpful People) classically strengthens that zone -- the mirror image of a missing area. Worth up to +2. The "modest" size threshold and exactly which zones an extension benefits vary by lineage, so this bonus is flagged provisional in the tool until a practitioner confirms the rule.
See also: general guidance on missing-corner floor plans in our Feng Shui observations reference.
Entry Sequence & Chi Flow
ClassicalEntry sequence reads whatever your front door opens directly onto. A bathroom facing the entry drains arriving chi immediately (−5); a kitchen or a staircase in the same spot is similarly unsettling (−4 each); a garage is heavy, stagnant energy at the mouth of chi (−3); a bedroom exposed straight to entry chi is also −3. An open living space or a proper foyer receiving arrivals is ideal (+3 each); a gathering space like a dining room is +2; nothing crowding the entry axis at all is a mild +1.
Chi retention checks whether your front door lines up straight through to a rear door or opening. A straight run lets chi rush through instead of settling ("piercing heart," −6); no such alignment means chi meanders and is retained (+2).
Door alignment flags two specific interior conflicts, each geometry-checkable from your plan: an interior door that opens straight toward the front door (−2), and two interior doors facing each other across a gap, "fighting doors" (−2, stacks with the first, capped at −4 total).
Kitchen & Bathroom Placement
ClassicalBathroom placement is read per zone: a bath draining the home's strongest zone (Health · Tai Chi center) costs −6; Wealth −5; Love −4; Fame or Career −3; Family −3; Children or Knowledge −2; Helpful People, the most forgiving, −1. A bath sitting directly on the front-door path costs an additional −2. Bathrooms landing only in the more forgiving zones score a flat +1.
Kitchen placement reads the stove against the five-element character of whatever zone it occupies (fire working against or drawing on that zone's element), on top of two geometry checks: −2 if the stove sits on the front-door path, −3 if it shares a wall with a bathroom. A stove that avoids the center, the door path, and a shared bath wall scores a flat +2.
Primary Bedroom, Bed Position & the Home's Center
ClassicalPrimary bedroom placement combines its zone (Love and Family are supportive, up to +4 and +2; the center and Career are not, down to −4 and −3) with two geometry checks: +2 for sitting in the rear "command" third of the home away from the entry, and −2 if an ensuite or adjacent bath drains the room.
Bed command position reads whether your bed's headboard sits against a solid wall, diagonal from the door, in view but not in its direct path -- the traditional "commanding" position (+4). A bed floating with no solid headboard support is −1; a bed set directly in the door's path ("coffin position") is −5. Additional beds beyond the primary are read too, weighted less (up to +2 combined for being in command, or a further penalty for a coffin position).
Bed backing checks whether a headboard backs onto a bathroom or kitchen wall -- unsettling in Form School practice. −3 for the primary bed, −1 per additional bed, capped at −5 total.
See also: general bedroom and command-position guidance in our Feng Shui observations reference.
Tai Chi center (the home's heart) wants to stay open. A bathroom occupying it is the steepest penalty (−6); a kitchen −4; stairs or a garage −3; storage or a bedroom a mild −1. An open living space or hallway at the center scores +2.
What this reads, and what only a Feng Shui master can
This score reads your home's fixed floor-plan layout in the Form-School tradition -- the foundation you can see on a plan. A true, complete reading also weighs things a flat plan can't carry, which is exactly what a master adds:
- Height & form in 3-D -- overhead beams, low or sloped ceilings, sharp column corners, and where a staircase lands. We read the floor, not the ceiling.
- Time -- the period your home was built and the year's shifting influences, which a master updates over time. (Our $49 ProperQi™ Match tier does read construction era via Xuan Kong Flying Star, but that's a separate, whole-home Compass School reading, not part of this floor-plan score.)
- The people -- a master personalizes the reading to the residents and their favorable directions. We use no birth dates and no personal or household information, by design.
- The compass facing & the world outside -- the precise facing, and the land, roads, and water around the home.
- The finishing -- colors, materials, light, mirrors, furnishings, and upkeep, which bring a layout to life.
Our method uses an equal nine-square grid oriented to your front door; traditions vary in the fine details, and the point weights above are a calibrated starting point, not an absolute verdict.
Where this fits among our tools -- said out loud
- This is a Form School variant, not a substitute for our other tools. The free/Expanded score on /reference reads a whole property's siting (roads, water, hazards, school proximity) using its own Form School approach -- a different question from this floor plan's interior layout, even though both sit under the "Form School" umbrella.
- ProperQi™ Match ($49) is the other tradition entirely. It's full Compass SchoolCompass School
The other major tradition, focused on precise compass directions and how they interact with a specific person (via their Kua number) or a specific point in time (via systems like Flying Star). ProperQi™ Match, the Bagua overlay, Tai Sui/Sui Po, and Flying Star are all Compass School methods.
Full glossary → work -- a resident's Kua number, Xuan Kong Flying Star, and a true-compass whole-home Bagua overlay, oriented to real compass directions rather than this tool's front-door wall. See its own methodology page. - This isn't a substitute for a working Feng Shui practitioner. The Practitioner Directory exists for exactly this reason -- a starting point for reflection, never a reason to rule a home in or out.
"Confidence, yes. Certainty, never."
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