The front door is the home’s primary entry point for qi, and feng shui treats it with corresponding seriousness. The direction it faces (the facing direction of the house in classical terminology) determines the entire flying-star chart in Xuan Kong feng shui, and in Eight Mansions it determines the auspicious sectors for everyone living in the house.
Three placements weaken a front door more than any others. First, a door that opens onto a long straight corridor inside the home (“piercing heart sha”) lets qi rush in and out without circulating. Second, a door directly aligned with a back door or window creates the same effect. Third, a door that opens into a wall or a closed-off small foyer chokes the flow.
What is outside the front door matters as much as what is inside. Pillars, lamp posts, sharp building corners, T-junctions, and dead-end roads all create incoming sha qi that must be assessed before any internal corrections are useful. The classical landform school (峦头) reads these external features first.
Inside, the foyer should give qi a place to settle — a small console, a low plant, a piece of art — before the corridor leads further into the home. The foyer is the only room in the home where mild stagnation is encouraged. You want qi to slow down and look around when it enters.