Textured ceilings probably help hide things, but why the lines?
Drop ceiling. That’s a panel and there’s 1-2 ft of space between it and the real ceiling. It’s much easier to run your utilities there than in the walls, and the panels make it easy to access.
It’s not a suspended ceiling, it’s a concrete slab. It’s probably a prestressed concrete slab and the lines are the individual panels. It could be poured in place but I doubt it as that would require a ton of form work and be very slow and expensive.
A drop ceiling would have a little metal frame that the panel sits in.
Drop ceiling tiles are so fragile and ugly. Very laborious to install. Guests would do stupid things, like lift them up to snoop and put tuna cans up there and other nefarious stuff. The stack of tiles needed to outfit a hotel would be massive. To think drop ceilings are used in hotels defies logic.
Yes, this answer. Try hitting it (don’t). Also reduces heating costs in old properties with high ceilings.
I think they’re wall panels that fit together instead of real taped and bedded drywall. Probably makes it easier to replace if there’s damage. Kind of like using carpet tiles instead of rolled wall-to-wall carpet.
ETA- something like this. https://trusscore.com/products/wall-and-ceilingboard.html
As many people commented, it’s a gap between concrete slabs. it is more pronounced in the basement of my building, because they didn’t try much at cover it.
Btw, I photographed it earlier to demonstrate the great work engineers done neatly guiding wiring and piping.
Edit: provided photo as a link
https://photos.app.goo.gl/RCsS9fJmFnp4XGbR9One of the best ways to understand this is to imagine a multi-storey car park. Concrete exterior walls, support pillars and wide open spaces. Now imagine it being a hotel. All the internal walls and ceilings could go anywhere. What you need is sound/heat insulation and somewhere to hide all your pipes and cables.
Quick, clean and crisp-looking are big concerns from the constructor and operators’ point of view. Whatever methods and materials work best will tend to become industry standard.
Because that’s how they’re made
You can tell by the way that it is.