Fake building

For example, the pumping stations that housed large steam engines in the 19th and early 20th centuries were intentionally built to publicly communicate a message of safety and reliability in addition to expressing functionality.

Additionally, building designs inherited from beam engine buildings required strong rigid walls and raised floors to support engines, large-arched and multi-story windows to allow natural light in, and roof ventilation via structures like decorative dormers.

More elaborate designs were also used to communicate a sacred atmosphere and highlight the critical tasks performed at facilities like sewage pumping stations.

[3] Other types of infrastructure facilities—such as gas supply, electrical supply, and communications buildings—developed their own styles as well[4] Examples include the Radialsystem (sewage pumping station in Berlin), the Kempton Park Steam Engines house, the Chestnut Hill Waterworks (Massachusetts), the Spotswood Pumping Station (Melbourne), the Palacio de Aguas Corrientes (Buenos Aires), the Sewage Plant in Bubeneč (Prague), and the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant (Toronto).

The property was acquired by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company in 1907, after which it was internally transformed into infrastructure for ventilating underground transportation.

Harold Alphonso Bodwell, a utility employee appointed as a lead designer in Toronto, introduced the idea of disemboweling unused housing to set up substations within them.

[11] Eventually, Toronto Hydro built house-shaped substations with six different base models ranging from ranch-style houses to Georgian mansions.