30-Year-Old Apartment: Knocking Down the Ceiling to Reveal the Original Slab

Show the living room of a renovated thirty-year-old Taiwanese walk-up apartment where the dropped ceiling has been removed entirely to recover height. Render the original concrete slab left exposed overhead, its board-form marks, patched pours and slight unevenness all visible and lightly sealed rather than skimmed flat. Run new conduit, sprinkler line and air-conditioning refrigerant pipe as a deliberate parallel array across the slab, painted the same off-white so they read as texture rather than clutter. Keep the ceiling height generous at around 2.9 metres as a result. Below, keep the palette calm: pale oak flooring, a plaster-finish feature wall, a low linear sofa, and a full-height storage wall with recessed grip grooves instead of handles. Show a single exposed beam crossing the room, its underside used as the mounting line for a slim linear light. Include an aluminium sliding door to a rear service balcony with laundry visible beyond, which is how these apartments actually work. Bright indirect daylight from one side, honest concrete and plaster texture, photorealistic, eye-level wide view.