In contemporary interior architecture, service provisions—mechanical, electrical, HVAC, plumbing—are almost always treated as elements to be concealed. Thickened wall cavities, extensive dropped ceilings, and, in regions where solid construction such as brick or concrete prevails, furred-out walls are routinely employed to hide these systems. This approach has become so normalized that it often forms the starting assumption for spatial planning, inherently constraining imagination and reducing the range of spatial possibilities. The priority shifts towards covering-up, rather than exploring how these systems might coexist visibly within a design language.
Not too long ago, however, during the high-modernist period of the 1970s, building services were not hidden—they were celebrated. A prime example is the Centre Pompidou in Paris, where Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano turned service ducts into an architectural statement. Housing a library, museum, and research centre, the building famously colour-coded its exposed infrastructure: green for plumbing, blue for climate control, yellow for electrical, and red for circulation and safety. The decision to externalize these systems was not only aesthetic—it also freed the interiors from spatial constraints, maximizing usable floor area and enabling flexibility.
