GAD Editorial · Published · · English study · Chinese summary
An open floor depends on decisions about things that cannot move easily. Structure, lifts, ducts and service connections establish a lasting framework for furniture, partitions and activities. Centre Pompidou in Paris and Sendai Mediatheque in Japan make that framework unusually legible. Their comparison offers a practical way to read flexibility: identify what is fixed, where it sits and which changes it can support without major reconstruction.
Taking systems to the edge
Centre Pompidou's institutional account describes Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers locating major services and circulation outside the principal usable volume. Its colour system distinguishes air, electricity, water and pedestrian movement. The result is a set of large internal floors designed for different arrangements, with technical distribution and public movement contributing to the external character of the building. Centre Pompidou architecture.
The important relationship is between the perimeter and the floor it serves. Moving a large duct away from an exhibition area can remove an obstruction, but equipment still needs connections to the occupied space. A drawing of the external pipes alone would therefore miss the next question: how does a new layout reach the services it requires? The exterior makes part of the system visible; a fit-out study must follow the connection farther.
Bringing services through the floor
Sendai Mediatheque distributes its fixed elements differently. The institution describes thirteen independent steel shafts supporting flat floor construction. The tubes also accommodate service pipework and wiring, including network and air-conditioning infrastructure, as well as lifts and stairs. Different floors have different plans. Toyo Ito's architectural office and Mutsuro Sasaki's structural office are identified in the official project credits. Sendai building characteristics.
In this case, the fixed infrastructure is present within the field of occupation. The tubes provide a set of recurring positions around which different activities can be arranged. Their spatial role extends beyond carrying loads: they bring vertical movement and technical support into the organisation of each level. That is a useful distinction when reading photographs of apparently continuous floors. Openness does not imply an absence of strong internal coordinates.
Follow a proposed change
Imagine converting part of a public floor from reading space into a small exhibition. Draw the positions that remain fixed, then add the lighting, power, acoustic separation and staff access the new use would require. At Pompidou, the study begins with the relationship between the perimeter systems and the interior. At Sendai, it begins with the distribution of tubes and connections across the floor. These are analytical starting points, not claims that either conversion is automatically permitted or straightforward.
The institution's account of Pompidou also records repeated renovation and a major technical renewal programme. That history is a useful reminder that an adaptable spatial concept still needs work as equipment, regulations and expectations change. It does not establish that exposed systems caused or prevented any particular maintenance outcome. Centre Pompidou renovation history.
A convincing flexibility brief should name the changes it anticipates and the effort each change requires. Partition options, service reach, maintenance access and disruption to neighbouring activities can be examined together. The GAD records for Centre Pompidou and Sendai Mediatheque invite that closer reading. Their transferable value lies in making the relationship between fixed infrastructure and changing occupation explicit, rather than treating an open-plan image as a complete account of future use.