TOS Engineering Layout

[darkwing_duck1]

I was reading files over at Trekplace, and I read the article about the various "incarnations" of TOS' Engineering set.

I got inspired and tried my hand at "incorporating" as many of the various elements into one set as possible

This is what I came up with:

Comments, crits are appreciated

 

[Wingsley]

Don't forget Scotty's little station next to the "front door", (earlier version, later version) as well as the passageway that leads to the matter-antimatter integrator control chamber nearby (where Watkins met his demise at Losira's hands)

 

[darkwing_duck1]

^ The first item you mention is already there (Console #1).

As for the second, I'll go back and see where it seems to be. I suspect it's not part of the Main Engineering proper, but may be one deck down (where I believe the actual Warp Core is).

 

[Wingsley]

Ooops!

I was confused because you show steps between the two big consoles; that's a feature that was added to the "second" version of Engineering, right? I remembered your "console #1" as part of the "first" version.

 

[hellsgate]

I was hoping with the mothball fleet haulled out & refurbished after "S.T.: Nemesis", that the TOS era ships' engine rooms would get the TNG (F.C.-Era) treatment & perhaps a Defiant-Class style compact battle bridge (with Captain's Chair & holo-viewer) set-up.

 

[Shaw]

I hadn't gotten very far, but this is an early sketch I was using to play around with for the arrangement of main engineering. It is the approximate layout of the set as seen from season two onwards.

The set fit nicely into the spot where I figured it was located in the secondary hull (as seen in my very early sketches of internal arrangement from last March).

It is always fun to think about how this stuff might all fit together.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Ooops!

I was confused because you show steps between the two big consoles; that's a feature that was added to the "second" version of Engineering, right? I remembered your "console #1" as part of the "first" version.

Reading the article made me realize just how INconsistent they were, even within seasons. Major set pieces moved around and or were present/absent as needed by the story (and somehow we never noticed ). The two deck instrument wall with stairs is indeed 2nd season on, IIRC, however. There were a couple of things though that I had to leave out, the most prominent being the "office space" that was partitioned off in a couple of eps where someone needed a place to hide/hide something. There was just no way to make it fit. I also had to "cheat" the right side of the room, leaving a significant amount of blank space for the spot where the M-5 could have been installed in "The Ultimate Computer".

 

[darkwing_duck1]

I hadn't gotten very far, but this is an early sketch I was using to play around with for the arrangement of main engineering. It is the approximate layout of the set as seen from season two onwards.

The set fit nicely into the spot where I figured it was located in the secondary hull (as seen in my very early sketches of internal arrangement from last March).

It is always fun to think about how this stuff might all fit together.

That's pretty good! You're going with the set "as filmed", which is perfectly legit. In my "amalgam" concept, I had to sacrifice things like the "alcove office" because I needed the space for the big power units.

 

[FalTorPan]

Both of those are very good diagrams.

Like many people here, I have my own ideas about how the room is "really" laid out. My plan was to do a write-up on my idea once I had finished writing the "Re-Engineering Main Engineering" article to which darkwing_duck1 referred.

Obviously I never got around to finishing the article. One of these days...

 

[Captain Robert April]

Here's my notion....

The key factor in putting the engine room aft of the warp core is the placement of the dilithium crystal articulation thingie in the middle of the room. Since the plasma has to go through the crystals in order to be amped up enough to be of use to the warp drive, it only makes sense for it to be between the reactor and the nacelles.

As for the placement of the first season engine room forward of the warp core, it started off as a joke, but it just made so much sense on a number of levels, I decided to keep it.

 

[Wingsley]

This kind of discussion always gets me to thinking: could the TOS Enterprise have had more than one engine room? The "version 1" engine room looks different enough from the "version 2" engine room that I had always taken for granted that one was for "Warp Drive Engineering" in the secondary hull and the other was for "Impulse Engineering" in the saucer. This was first proposed by FJ in his blueprints, IIRC.

Of course, it's been pointed out that because of the saucer's underside undercut that a large engine room with such a high ceiling could not fit in the aft reaches of the saucer's rim. So unless the saucer had a large engine room situated elsewhere in the saucer (right in the heart of it, perhaps?), it looks like the mini-engine room seen in "The Alternative Factor" would be all that hull could house.

 

[Timo]

I would argue that the ship had to have far more engineering space than portrayed by any single set. That's the only way the facility could be the sort of maze where the Evil Kirk or Ben Finney could hope to hide from searches.

I would also argue that it would be a good idea to assume at least two sets' worth of space, side by side, at the forward end of that fancy pipework. This would bring symmetry to the engineering arrangements, more reasonably accommodate the curve of the ceiling, and offer space for the hiding. If need be, there could be another pair of sets (the real one and the supposed mirror image) at the aft end of the pipework, too - there's plenty of space for both that and the shuttlebay since the forced perspective of the pipes allows for a freedom of interpretation.

...In fact, my preferred arrangement would be to have three of those pipework tunnels at the core of the ship, two on an upper level and one on a lower one, so that the angle of pipes would support their triangular placement. There would then be spaces resembling the engineering set at both levels, and perhaps at both ends, allowing for up to four different versions of the set to exist simultaneously!

Certainly the schematic view in "In a Mirror, Darkly" suggests a massive engineering "core" at the centerline of the secondary hull; the triangle of these horizontal shafts would account for that rather nicely.

I agree that trying to fit the engineering set(s) in the saucer is problematic, and perhaps we shouldn't even try. But fitting the set(s) in the secondary hull, accepting that there is a curved corridor outside the (forward) set, and then assuming that the dilithium-nursing room of "Alternative Factor" is on the other side of that corridor, would maximally preserve set continuity while fitting within the exterior shape. It is IMHO a good idea anyway to allow for curved corridors in the secondary hull, to allow for the many shots where "lower decks" feature such a curve.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shaw]

I'd point out that one of the biggest issues most people face when looking at the engine room is the large "transformers". There seems to be this assumption that they need to be locked down to the floor and physically connected to something through the floor. Those are bad assumptions when we see them moved around (or missing completely) at different times.

Oddly enough it seems that people of the 21st century can't imagine what people of the later half of the 20th century could. Energy does not require Brazil-like ductworks to be moved around in massive amounts.

Consider the Phaser Cannon from The Cage. This was a free standing piece of equipment on the planet surface which was being powered by the Enterprise in orbit above. Not only that, it was accepting so much power that the Enterprise was being pushed to the point of overheating (which isn't all that different from what did happen to the Enterprise in The Paradise Syndrome). And it shouldn't be that hard to imagine anyways because beaming that type of energy to some specific place is basically what the transporter does.

Now consider the M-5 computer's connection in the Engine room in The Ultimate Computer. It was sitting on one end of the room but was powered via a port on the other end. A port which is normally inline with those two "transformers" in many episodes. Standing between that energy port and whatever is being powered by it is usually not a safety issue, but became one when the M-5 changed how the power was being beamed to it.

The other thing that many people over look is that we are talking about a spaceship... in zero gravity. The most conservative energy estimate of what it would take to create artificial gravity would be to assume that the ship has to supply whatever potential energy objects would have within the ship. And that antigravity units nullify objects from requiring that energy (in other words, when something is allowed to weigh nothing, power is saved). So moving large equipment around (like those "transformers") is actually a one person job that should take minimal effort.

So, what are those "transformer" things? My guess is that they are actually generators. And that they are used for restarting the main engines (and really only need to be arranged in series and aligned with the energy port on the wall when starting the engines). They are sort of like the starter motor of a car. If the main engines are running, then they can be moved aside or stored somewhere else completely.


Here is something to ponder... what if the Phasers, deflector and warp nacelles have no physical connection to the main engines? Basically, no ducts, tubes or wires connecting them to main engineering.

In studying this stuff from the original series, I'm getting the idea that the technology in Trek has been working backwards (becoming less advanced as the franchise has grown) over the last 40 years. When some of the most advanced concepts (and hardest to fathom for some people) were presented in the original pilot from 1965, and I have to wonder if current Star Trek is still going to inspire it's fans the way the original series had pushed us in the past to test our own technical boundaries.

I would argue that the ship had to have far more engineering space than portrayed by any single set. That's the only way the facility could be the sort of maze where the Evil Kirk or Ben Finney could hope to hide from searches.

Main engineering is on deck 16, which is a double height deck with two levels in many areas (16a and 16b). Finney was found on b deck in main engineering.

The areas primarily dedicated to engineering on deck 16 (which I would assume to be areas not used for the hangar deck and gallery) make for a pretty large area. Below I've laid out those areas of deck 16 over a football field (to scale) to help put some perspective on this.

I would also argue that it would be a good idea to assume at least two sets' worth of space, side by side, at the forward end of that fancy pipework. This would bring symmetry to the engineering arrangements, more reasonably accommodate the curve of the ceiling, and offer space for the hiding...

Well, the curve was only on one side, having it symmetric and/or twice as wide as seen runs directly into the Emergency Manual Monitor room on Deck 16a overlooking main engineering.

Certainly the schematic view in "In a Mirror, Darkly" suggests a massive engineering "core" at the centerline of the secondary hull; the triangle of these horizontal shafts would account for that rather nicely.

Drexler's graphic had nothing (at all) to do with the original series and he is one of those people who seems to have real issues when it comes to scale or measurements (I would rather keep the designer of the Defiant from DS9 as far away from the TOS Enterprise as possible).

I agree that trying to fit the engineering set(s) in the saucer is problematic, and perhaps we shouldn't even try. But fitting the set(s) in the secondary hull, accepting that there is a curved corridor outside the (forward) set, and then assuming that the dilithium-nursing room of "Alternative Factor" is on the other side of that corridor, would maximally preserve set continuity while fitting within the exterior shape. It is IMHO a good idea anyway to allow for curved corridors in the secondary hull, to allow for the many shots where "lower decks" feature such a curve.

The issue of straight and curved corridors is best served by ignoring them as the show was restricted to one small segment to represent everywhere.

But if you are needing that dilithium-nursing room to be next to a curved corridor, why not use what we were given in the show itself... deck 7 (in the primary hull) is the location of the main energizers. Maybe that was what we were seeing.

In all actuality, many of the areas we know of we have a pretty good idea where they were from the show itself. Rand's quarters (on deck 12) is the only direct reference I'm considering disregarding.

I know that some people have floated the idea that the cabin numbers mean something, but I doubt it. Here are some examples...

Kirk: 3F 121
McCoy: 3F 127
Rand: 3C 46​

And Kirk's quarters are known to be on deck 5.


My suggestion to everyone (and I don't see this enough from most people) is to take the sets and make them to scale with whatever size you believe the Enterprise to be, and start attempting to arrange things to match the show as best as possible. It worked for me, and I was working with the added restriction of making the sets fit into Jefferies' hull pressure compartments (most people disregard that reference completely). That type of effort shows that people are really trying to think this stuff through rather than just throwing ideas out there.

 

[Timo]

I'd point out that one of the biggest issues most people face when looking at the engine room is the large "transformers". There seems to be this assumption that they need to be locked down to the floor and physically connected to something through the floor. Those are bad assumptions when we see them moved around (or missing completely) at different times.

Indeed. All we need is a rationale for why anybody would need to move those things around... And I really like yours. Those things were never one of the points that made me wish for multiple coexisting engineering sets in the first place - the differently positioned walls and the floor fixtures were.

The areas primarily dedicated to engineering on deck 16 (which I would assume to be areas not used for the hangar deck and gallery) make for a pretty large area. Below I've laid out those areas of deck 16 over a football field (to scale) to help put some perspective on this.

Right. Now we need to fill those volumes with shirtsleeves-accessible nooks and crannies. And we have lots of (partial) sets we can use for that.

Well, the curve was only on one side,

...Which is a big reason for imagining a matching "portside" set!

having it symmetric and/or twice as wide as seen runs directly into the Emergency Manual Monitor room on Deck 16a overlooking main engineering.

Nothing requires the other half to be absolutely symmetric in terms of installed equipment, only in terms of the shape of the room...

Drexler's graphic had nothing (at all) to do with the original series

Well, TOS dropped the ball on the issue of laying out the engineering spaces or other interiors - so Drexler is certainly better than the nothing those people left us with. And his graphic certainly acknowledges established TOS and even TAS facts and layouts; everything else we get is on the plus side.

and he is one of those people who seems to have real issues when it comes to scale or measurements (I would rather keep the designer of the Defiant from DS9 as far away from the TOS Enterprise as possible).

Uh, the Defiant was designed by Jim Martin - as a Bajoran ragtag freighter! Making lemonade out of that were several enthusiastic squeezers, with Drexler being involved on two stages - one where the ship was called to have four decks, another where six were called for. He did reasonably good work with creating the four-decker out of a ship that was incompatible with Federation starship design in so many ways; too bad he never had time to do the six-decker for the DS9 Tech Manual.

The issue of straight and curved corridors is best served by ignoring them as the show was restricted to one small segment to represent everywhere.

I disagree, of course. We could ignore most of TOS as "production limitations" (but for some reason, the makers of the likes of "Trials and Tribble-ations" did not). Or then we could take what we are given, and make it fit. The curved corridor certainly fits without undue effort.

I know that some people have floated the idea that the cabin numbers mean something, but I doubt it. Here are some examples...

Kirk: 3F 121
McCoy: 3F 127
Rand: 3C 46
​

And Kirk's quarters are known to be on deck 5.

Only in "Journey to Babel", though. And from "Elaan of Troyius", we know that when VIPs come aboard, the regulars have to pack up and move. AND Kirk ended up ambushed in a basically empty corridor when approaching his cabin - something that wouldn't really have happened near his regular quarters, where extras always wandered by the doorway when Spock or McCoy paid a visit to the Captain.

I'd be happy to cluster top officer (and top officer aide) accommodation on Deck 3, close to the bridge and within the "superstructure" of the ship rather than her "lower decks". Rand might have a "lower decks" ratings cabin in addition to her "ready room", though, quite possibly on Deck 12.

The thing I would like to ignore in this respect is the long no-cuts walk we get in "Mudd's Women" that establishes Kirk's quarters to be on Deck 12. Three ways to do that, really: 1) Plug ears, close eyes, sing real loud, 2) Argue that there was indeed a cut in the turbolift ride, and Spock stopped at Deck 12 for some reason before proceeding to Deck 3, 3) Invent a reason why Kirk was evicted from Deck 3 during this episode - ongoing repairs in the aftermath of the first-pilot disaster, perhaps? Rand might also have been reassigned there for the duration, then.

My suggestion to everyone (and I don't see this enough from most people) is to take the sets and make them to scale with whatever size you believe the Enterprise to be, and start attempting to arrange things to match the show as best as possible.

I'll get my squeeze of three pipe corridors, six engineering sets, the curved corridor and the dilithium nursery from my home computer by tomorrow...

It worked for me, and I was working with the added restriction of making the sets fit into Jefferies' hull pressure compartments (most people disregard that reference completely).

I have tired to work out how the pressure compartments (which no doubt omit several non-pressureproof walls) might support the Drexler interiors, which IMHO do better justice to the idea of an "engineering hull" than the inclusion of a bit of engineering hardware in a couple of the office cubes into which that hull seems to be divided. Let's see if I can get that in graphical form by tomorrow, too.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shaw]

Those things were never one of the points that made me wish for multiple coexisting engineering sets in the first place - the differently positioned walls and the floor fixtures were.

That was why I liked April's multiple engine rooms.

Only in "Journey to Babel", though.

And Mirror, Mirror too.

And from "Elaan of Troyius", we know that when VIPs come aboard, the regulars have to pack up and move.

She was placed in the safest part of the ship... the inner rings of deck 5 are safer than other areas. And she was sent to sickbay (on deck 5) when the ship was attacked.

The thing I would like to ignore in this respect is the long no-cuts walk we get in "Mudd's Women" that establishes Kirk's quarters to be on Deck 16

...deck 12 actually, which was why I put that reference in the same category as Rand's (and went with the other two references instead).

With Jefferies' layout, deck 12 only existed in the dorsal. Yeah, there is sorta room for the cabin sets to fit on one of those decks... but not with a curved corridor.

I have tired to work out how the pressure compartments (which no doubt omit several non-pressureproof walls) might support the Drexler interiors, which IMHO do better justice to the idea of an "engineering hull" than the inclusion of a bit of engineering hardware in a couple of the office cubes into which that hull seems to be divided.

Most of the compartments were two decks high, and they were most likely prefabricated and assembled into the ship.

If you think that they were the size of office cubes, I'm thinking that maybe you don't have the scale right. I've done tons of examples of how the arrangement works out (for a 947' ship). You can find the general assembly of the primary hull compartment illustrated here, here and here, and secondary hull compartments here. In the sectioned views you can see that the idea of a lot of single height decks (like from FJ) aren't needed nor were they what Jefferies had intended.

If you are wed to Drexler's interior, you can find a large scale version online. I'm happy to stick with Jefferies for TOS related stuff though. Between all the plans and sketches (for both the sets and model) he left behind for us, an astonishingly detailed version of his Enterprise can be put together.

But Drexler's center line view looks more interesting than mine... but I also don't believe that everything of interest would exist strictly along the center line of the ship. I've actually been considering omitting the center line cut view and replacing it with a number of sectioned view perpendicular to the center line to give a better feel for the true layout of the ship (similar to what I've already done in many of my sketches).

 

[Timo]

And Mirror, Mirror too.

Alternate universe!

She was placed in the safest part of the ship... the inner rings of deck 5 are safer than other areas.

Perhaps, although nothing of the sort was stated in the episode, and the idea of inner-decks safety is somewhat dubious when we consider TOS style space combat where unshielded hits don't just blow small holes in the hull. But to accommodate her, Uhura had to leave, setting the precedent I wished for.

...deck 12 actually

Yeah... Your fingers were quicker than mine.

With Jefferies' layout, deck 12 only existed in the dorsal. Yeah, there is sorta room for the cabin sets to fit on one of those decks... but not with a curved corridor.

Which is why it would be nice to try one of the other alternative explanations. Although it must be noted that no curved corridors on Deck 12 are in evidence in the scenes, as Spock and his chattel's maneuvers after leaving the turbolift at its supposed destination on Deck 12 are not shown.

So we are left with two leading options: temporarily relocated quarters in the neck, or a two-legged journey to Deck 3 which involved changing lifts on Deck 12 or changing from lift to walking on Deck 12... Perhaps there is a quarantine/decon facility on Deck 12, both for people brought aboard by shuttle or secondary hull transporters, and for people showered with soot from Scotty's bairns?

If you think that they were the size of office cubes, I'm thinking that maybe you don't have the scale right.

Not really; what I mean is that an internal structure consisting of giant cavities shaped quite unlike habitable rooms is a more "industrial-looking" or "machine-room-style" interpretation of the secondary hull than an internal structure consisting largely of regular-sized rooms and corridors interspersed with moderately sized machinery. Even a machinery arrangement the size of a basketball court would count as "office-sized" in my gripe; much nicer if there's a vast horizontal cylinder there that pushes all corridors and rooms aside.

But Drexler's center line view looks more interesting than mine...

Now that's another way of saying the same thing.

Granted that the Drexler graphic does not exactly show bulkheads. But the two thick grey horizontal lines with small circles inside (making them look like holed I-beams, really) nicely match the upper and lower limits of the central "pressure compartments" in the clumsy graphic that mars our view of Kirk's bridge turbolift alcove.

Here's a threefold comparison of a doodle, said clumsy graphic, and said "IaMD" onscreen art.



Basically, I tried to show that the visible stretch of curved corridor can fit in the widest part of the secondary hull all right, and an arrangement where three "pipe shafts" surround the "real warp core" (a horizontal cylinder not unlike the ENT one) could be what looks like a massive block in the other graphics. That's a sort of a worst-case scenario, which would get better with refining.

The doodle is based on FASA blueprint scans; it would seem that going by the scaling and the truer outline of the ship in the following familiar thread

( http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=45261 )

would allow the curved set to fit even better.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shaw]

So are you saying that the Emergency Manual Monitor room would be sitting on top of the center dividing wall? And that the wall in the EMM room that we never see is another open grating overlooking the other engine room?

That makes for an interesting solution. It would also seem to add places for TAS engine room elements too.

If you need a better resolution graphic of the Day of the Dove display, I can dig one up. I've collected a few display graphics from TOS.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I'd take any TAS references with some very large grains of salt. The guys at Filmation didn't seem to have a clue about the size of the ship, or just didn't give a rip.

 

[Timo]

Re: Shaw... (My license to type expired while I was doing this, and April also managed to insert a comment.)

I think I will leave that to experts: my work here is done! (In the sense that yes, up to six engineering sets do fit in the allocated volume, and the curved corridor can also exist if really need be.)

Thinking this through, I would probably assign two first-season engineering sets to the upper aft engineering levels - one the set we saw in "Enemy Within", one its mirror image, with a flat floor in between for moving those generators around, and a bit of transporter hardware near the center so that a phaser fight can damage it.

I would then assign the final engineering set and its putative mirror image to the roomier front of the engineering complex, with the EMM room above the centerline and watching over the two (not necessarily completely symmetrical) halves. The dilithium foci would be accessible through just one of these aft set-halves, not lying between the putative central reactor and the engine pylons but rather between the reactor and its matter and antimatter feeds, TNG style. The foci would be accessed via an offset dumbwaiter/waldo system that would allow for a healthy separation between them and the shirtsleeves environment. The dumbwaiter/waldo would be repeated in the ST2:TWoK engine room arrangement for the pedestal thingamabob which Spock repairs, although the initial TMP set would have a more automated (and perhaps more failure-prone and thus later abandoned) means of accessing that underfloor focus.

The lower rooms and the third horizontal shaft in between might not be entirely necessary to explain away all the different engineering set layouts, but the intermediate set without the floor dilithium whachamacallems might go down there anyway... As might the TAS set that has that tube coming from the ceiling and continuing down (perhaps part of the dilithium dumbwaiter postulated above?).

The heavy lid that trapped Scotty might be a direct way to access the "actual reactor" that hides from view somewhere between the "pipe shafts". The fiery angled tubes from "One of Our Planets is Missing" would indeed go to the nacelles, much as Drexler's drawing (based on many earlier works) suggests - and it would indeed be possible to kickstart the ship by inserting antimatter directly into a nacelle, but only one of the nacelles would be configured for this highly nonstandard if-all-else-fails maneuver, hence designated "the antimatter nacelle".

What else? Oh, the "Alternative Factor" room would be a special facility for nursing damaged or drained micro-dilithium-crystal paddle matrices back to health. A cute blueshirt specialist would handle this delicate, nonstandard procedure to help out the low-brow engineering grease monkeys - but the dilithium paddles being cared for in that machinery would not play a crucial role in the ship's power production, as they did not in the episode. And yes, paddles coated with microcrystals would be the normal way to run a starship - whole crystals would be a rare commodity indeed, and only available in bulk in the 24th century thanks to synthesis techniques.

That's about how far I've gotten in customizing my interpretation of the TOS ship. But I'll keep working on it, all the while admiring April's alternative and waiting for the newest measurements from you...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ahkyahnan]

Oddly enough it seems that people of the 21st century can't imagine what people of the later half of the 20th century could. Energy does not require Brazil-like ductworks to be moved around in massive amounts.

Consider the Phaser Cannon from The Cage. This was a free standing piece of equipment on the planet surface which was being powered by the Enterprise in orbit above. Not only that, it was accepting so much power that the Enterprise was being pushed to the point of overheating (which isn't all that different from what did happen to the Enterprise in The Paradise Syndrome).

Now consider the M-5 computer's connection in the Engine room in The Ultimate Computer. It was sitting on one end of the room but was powered via a port on the other end. A port which is normally inline with those two "transformers" in many episodes. Standing between that energy port and whatever is being powered by it is usually not a safety issue, but became one when the M-5 changed how the power was being beamed to it.

The other thing that many people over look is that we are talking about a spaceship... in zero gravity. The most conservative energy estimate of what it would take to create artificial gravity would be to assume that the ship has to supply whatever potential energy objects would have within the ship. And that antigravity units nullify objects from requiring that energy (in other words, when something is allowed to weigh nothing, power is saved). So moving large equipment around (like those "transformers") is actually a one person job that should take minimal effort.

Here is something to ponder... what if the Phasers, deflector and warp nacelles have no physical connection to the main engines? Basically, no ducts, tubes or wires connecting them to main engineering.

In studying this stuff from the original series, I'm getting the idea that the technology in Trek has been working backwards (becoming less advanced as the franchise has grown) over the last 40 years.

Those are interesting observations, and I agree. The phaser cannon example had already been thought of in time for the very first pilot episode even, and apparently TV audiences were sophisticated enough to understand it. And it's not far-fetched sci-fi either. There have been proposals for orbiting large solar arrays and transmitting electricity back to Earth for years now.

There was some speculation here a good while back that something similar might occur overhead in the corridors as well. Remember those high ceilings with the funny colored/patterned members/braces every couple meters overhead? The idea was put forward that maybe those were a sort of 'wireless' energy grid that transmitted energy and data/communications signals throughout the ship. So instead of a roughly 3 foot-high Jefferies tube between each deck with wires and conduits running through it, there was a similarly sized unenclosed invisible network overhead instead. Was an interesting idea, with presumably any necessary physical conduits and pipes running through the walls.

I also liked your comments on utilizing the natural gravity-free environment of space wherever possible. I'm sure a spacefaring race would recognize there are benefits to a lack of gravity as well as problems, and would seek to maximize the opportunities provided by both depending on the circumstances. I wrote a post about this subject at another forum quite awhile back that detailed examples of how this might be applied in Trek, specifically TMP.

Mark