How does your city number high-rise floors?
 

A potentially fun thread....

I've notice some patterns in how building owners assign numbers to floors in their buildings, that often considers cultural biases. For example:

-in the US and the Canadian province of Alberta, most buildings skip floor 13 as the number is considered unlucky. The real floor thirteen is named "14". See this in other parts of Canada, but not as ubiquitous as in Alberta
-in China, owners typically skip floors ending in 4, again because 4 is unlucky. See that in some buildings in Vancouver and Melbourne
-in Canada and the US, the bottom floor is typically named "G" or "M" for "Ground" or "Main". The next floor up is 2. In much of the rest of the world, the next floor up from "Ground" would be 1

It's been my experience in California that the ground floor is "G" or "1." "M" would be Mezzanine. Sometimes you'll see "L" for lobby.

And then of course the below ground parking would be P1, P2, P3, etc. with P1 being below 1 or G or L, etc.

Yeah, I don't think there is any one standard for naming the ground floor in the U.S. In NYC it just depends on the particular building, although L/Lobby is common for office buildings. My apartment building calls the main floor "1", but I've lived in other buildings that start numbering from 1 on the second level.

The weirdest numbering I've encountered was in Spain, where the floors underground are numbered with negative signs. It makes sense, but the first time I saw it I was confused when trying to figured out how to get to a rental car that I parked in an underground lot.

the building I live in skips floor 13 and used "G" for the ground floor.

I know there are a few buildings in Toronto that skip the 4's, though the vast majority do not. I'd say skipping 13 is about a 50/50 chance from my experience.

The European way of numbering the second floor as "1" bothers the heck out of me. It is the second floor above ground, it should be labelled as such.

The negative signs make sense, but yeah, I don't think they would do that in the US.

The main/Central public library in downtown Los Angeles has 5 upper levels and 4 basement levels; the lower levels are labeled as LL1, LL2, LL3 and LL4, with LL4 being the lowest level, of course.

I lived on the 13th floor in Cambridge. Pretty sure my current building also has a 13.

My current building also has an M between G and 2.

Mezzanine floors seem more common in older buildings where the second floor is only partial (i.e. the ground floor opens up two levels in places)

Something unique to Calgary, is naming the second floor as "+15", which is a reference to the city' +15 skywalk system, so named because it is supposed to be 15 feet above grade. Sometimes the third and fourth floors are named "+30" and "+45".

Floor 1 being immediately above "Ground" still confuses me even though I've been in Australia a long time now. I had far less challenge adapting to driving and walking on the left side.

I don't think I've ever seen floor 13 skipped anywhere outside the US and parts of Canada.

I currently live on the 13th floor of my building, so we most certainly include it here in Norfolk.

In my experience, most buildings in China don't skip all floors ending in 4, they most commonly skip the 14th floor since the pronunciation of 14 in Chinese is similar to the pronunciation of 'want to die'. Many buildings, such as the ones in my apartment complex, don't even skip 14. You also see buildings, especially those owned by Hong Kong companies, that skip 13 as well, so the elevator numbers go directly from 12 to 15.

The only place I've seen the 1st floor being the first floor above ground outside of the UK / Ireland is Hong Kong - they don't even seem to do that in Singapore.

I've seen below grade parking labeled as B1, B2, B3, etc. as well.

Must admit I haven't seen the missing floor number 13 thing a lot in Melbourne. Nor have I seen many places where the main entrance level is not marked G either.

My own building outside central Melb: B3, B2, B1, G, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

That's common in Europe. In France, the floor underground are numbered with negative numbers.

Except that you don't count the "floor" but the level above the ground level (excluded). The word "Étage" in French.
A one level house doesn't have any "étage". You need two level to have "1 etage".
The ground floor is 0.

High-rise in France is numbered like that
-4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15... The 13 isn't skipped.

Yes because étage refers to something (a level) that is raised above the ground.

Here in Quebec we are predictably schizophrenic.

Some buildings have the first floor above ground as 2, but in some buildings it is 1. Things lean more towards 2 though.

The ground floor in most elevators is RC or RDC for rez de chaussée which means street level. Sometimes it is 0, but rarely 1 and almost never G.

It often has a star next to RC/RDC.

Thankfully. Could you figure such a joke here?
We're quite shocked and somewhat disturbed by uneducated people still reading horoscope or similar stupidity, but they're not that superstitious otherwise over here.

A ground floor is most often 'rez-de-chaussée', or 'rez-de-rue', that's an unusual but still valid synonym these days.
You'll also occasionally find 'rez-de-jardin' when ground floor is surrounded by a bit of greenery, and entresol when ground floor is slightly raised above actual street level.

In any case, these are never taken into account in floor count here.
A 1er étage (floor 1) would be called a 2nd floor in the US.

And then you have Vancouver and Toronto where many buildings skip both. :P

I had a friend living in a "15th floor" condo that was actually on the 12th floor because there were no 4th, 13th, or 14th floors. It gets even more ridiculous on taller towers where they may skip the entirety of the 40th-49th floors.

So funny, the owner of the building skip those number which is unlucky maybe.

Never heard of this - will have to ask the kids who took French if they have.

In Chicago we number the floors starting at the main street level, so in my building LL1 is below the street, and LL2 is the actual ground level, LL3 and LL4 are actually below grade (and below the river level).

In Spain the floor numbering depend on the age of the building, in modern buildings it is just -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 etc, there are no floors skipped due to superstition.


In older buildings it is a bit more complicated. You have the street level usually named bajo or in plain english the down floor, the next floor is the entresuelo alternatively entrepiso this is the intermediate floor. If the building is older than say 1940s, the next floor will be named principal, this is the so called main floor originally occupied by the building owner, on top of that you would find the numbered floors. The top floor is usually named ático which in english would be the attic.


So an old turn of the century building would have floors named in this way.

Sótano - basement
Semisótano - semi-basement
Bajo - first floor
Entresuelo - second floor
Principal - third floor
Primero - fourth floor
Segundo - fifth floor
Tercero - sixth floor
Cuarto - seventh floor
Áttico - eighth floor

In Birmingham, I've never been in a highrise where the 13th floor isn't occupied.

We do have many office buildings that only rise to the 12th floor, but there isn't much care taken to avoid a 13th floor in our taller buildings.

The city's Design Review Committee has to approve any new large building in downtown. The isn't much vertical construction in the city center where one would expect to see a new highrise. However, on the Southside of downtown (anything between the tracks and Red Mountain) the DRC (Design Review Committee) does take care to limit the height of buildings so as not obscure the landscape (the Vulcan statue in particular). We have two new residential highrises (one nearly complete and one that has begun construction recently). The first was reduced from 17 floors to 12, and the one under construction is also being limited to ~12 floors. But, I don't see this as much as superstition, mostly just to preserve the view of Red Mountain (especially Vulcan) from pretty much any location in downtown.