Unfortunately, a lot of why you are describing is deco. You can’t read books, no need for a giant library. There is no shopping (on official servers without mods) so your mall is decorative. Model villages and an apartment…deco.
If it’s not functional (benches/storage/altars), Funcom considers it deco and those should be used sparingly.
I really think you’d be happy on a private server where you can build like that! It’s what my partner and I do because we find it more fun to make ourselves an elaborate, well decorated base within a theme. It’s just the two of us so we don’t have to worry about selfishly taking up too many prime spots. We’ve had a Nordheimer village, a pyramid, a fortress, a city of thieves. I’d never try to build any of these on official.