Zoomed in looks more like copper pipe - sprinkler maybe? Whole pic looks like a commercial building to me.
Looks like standard Tennessee engineering to me. My Nashville McMansion (built in 2006) had similar feats of Tennessee engineering all through it. The roof was held up with the same style support structure.
I don't know you. I wanted to be clear just in case you had a thing for criminals and poo, or fat cop dudes.
Looks more like an attic than a basement. If it were a basement, you could put in footers and support beams rather than building steel trusses to support the overhead beams. It looks like a wood floor, also. Wouldn't be that likely to see that in a basement.
Definitely an attic space. Found this article which describes what’s in the pic as a bracket chimney. https://inspectapedia.com/chimneys/Bracket_Chimneys.php