Residential Vastu: Plot, Building Layout, and Room Placement
What this domain tests
Residential Vastu applies the mandala to a house. The exam expects you to assign rooms to zones, justify the placement by element and dikpala, and identify common residential doshas.
Core rules and concepts
- The building should sit toward the southwest of the plot, leaving the northeast open. Heavy structures belong in the south, southwest, and west; light structures in the north and northeast.
- Main entrance: east, north, or northeast is preferred. A southwest entrance is generally avoided. A south or west entrance needs careful treatment.
- Room placement: northeast for puja and water; east for living and entrance; southeast for the kitchen; southwest for the master bedroom; west for dining and children; northwest for guests and toilets; north for treasury or storage.
- In the kitchen, the stove belongs in the southeast and the sink in the northeast; the cook should face east. The master bedroom is best in the southwest, with the head toward the south or east. Toilets should be in the northwest or west, never in the northeast, southwest, or centre. Stairs are placed in the southwest, west, or south and should rise clockwise.
Worked example
A 30 ft by 40 ft north-facing house has its entrance on the north. Place the puja room in the northeast, the kitchen in the southeast, the master bedroom in the southwest, a toilet in the northwest, and the staircase in the southwest. The reasoning is elemental: fire belongs in the southeast, earth and heaviness in the southwest, water and lightness in the northeast, and air and movement in the northwest.
Traps that cost marks
Do not put the kitchen in the northeast merely because it is a sacred zone; Agni belongs in the southeast. Do not place a toilet in the northeast or under the staircase. Do not put the master bedroom in the northeast. Do not treat a south entrance as automatically equal to a southwest entrance.