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Storey
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A storey (spelled story in American English), floor, deck or level is the level of a building above (or below) the ground.
Buildings are often classified by how many levels they have. Low-rise, mid-rise, and high-rise buildings are all common, with the tallest skyscrapers having upwards of a hundred. Multi-storey buildings usually must have additional safety systems, such as fire sprinklers and fire escapes, as mandated by building codes.
The height of each storey is based on the ceiling height of the rooms and the thickness of the floors between each.
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Encyclopedia
A storey (spelled story in American English), floor, deck or level is the level of a building above (or below) the ground.
Buildings are often classified by how many levels they have. Low-rise, mid-rise, and high-rise buildings are all common, with the tallest skyscrapers having upwards of a hundred. Multi-storey buildings usually must have additional safety systems, such as fire sprinklers and fire escapes, as mandated by building codes.
The height of each storey is based on the ceiling height of the rooms and the thickness of the floors between each. Generally this is around ten feet or three metres total, however it varies widely from just under this figure to well over it. Storeys within a building need not be all the same height — often the lobby is quite spacious, for example. Higher levels may be smaller than the ones beneath (a prominent feature of the Sears Tower).
Some houses have an extra storey of living space in the attic, basement, or both. Split-level homes have two sides of the house offset from each other by a half-storey, while some homes have only a split-level entry, with the front door opening to two half-sets of stairs leading up to the main floor and down to the basement door.
There are also multi-storey car parks, also known as parking garages.
Numbering
Floor numbering is the numbering scheme used for a building's floors; it varies depending on the level of the "first floor" and on the names given to the subterranean levels.
Room numbers generally start with the floor's number; occasionally the first element may be the letter representing the floor. In large buildings, two conventions are common:
- Odd numbers are used for one side of the building and even for the other.
- The second digit in the room number indicates a specific block or wing of the building.
Confusion arises from the two forms of floor numbering in use worldwide.
In most of continental Europe, as well as the British Isles and much of the Commonwealth and Latin America, the floor at the ground level is the ground floor and the floor above is the first floor, which maintains the continental European use that dates from the days of the construction of palaces. For example, in French, the term for the ground floor is rez de chaussée which is numbered zero. In Spanish it is known as planta baja. In Chile and Peru particularly these have blended and the planta baja and primer piso are one and the same. Or, alternatively, the former extends to any space within the building's property at ground level whether constructed or not, while primer piso applies exclusively to the area that contains human constructs.
In North American usage (with certain exceptions in Quebec; however, "rez-de-chaussée" and "premier étage" are now generally equivalent in Quebec), the floor at the ground level is usually, but not always, the first floor and the floor above is the second floor; this system is also used in Russia, parts of Scandinavia outside Denmark and some countries of the former Soviet Union.
China, Taiwan, and Japan follows the American system, except that the numbers used are cardinals ("1F, 2F") rather than ordinals ("1st/2nd fl." or "fl. 1/2").
Elevator buttons are marked with floor numbers, often in both standard Arabic numerals and (with the exception of older elevators) in Braille. The ground floor may be designated "1", "G" for Ground, "M" for Main, or "L" for Lobby.
The principal floor is the floor that contains the chief apartments, whether on the ground floor or the floor above; in Italy they are often on the latter and may be known as the piano nobile. The floor below the ground floor is called the basement even if only a little below ground level, or the lower ground floor; the floor in a roof is known as the attic or the loft.
Lower floors
Subterranean levels vary in numbering systems, often using B for Basement or P for Parking, for the first level below ground, although L (or LL) for Lower Level or Lobby is sometimes used. In British department stores, "LG" for "Lower Ground" is commonly encountered, as the term "basement" is considered inappropriate for their image. The next level down may be SB for "Sub-Basement", although numbering more frequently occurs at this point, either B1/P1 etc. or use of negative numbers -1 etc.
It is worth noting that in certain buildings in the US with a subterranean parking lot, the basement parking floor is labelled G, representing "garage". Such a labelling in elevators may be misleading, as the button for G is directly below the button for the first floor and may be understood as "ground".
Occasionally, buildings in the US will have both a 1st floor and a Ground floor. The Ground floor is typically partially or completely underground. Sometimes in this configuration, the Ground floor will be accessible from outside the building as well. Buildings in Canada may have both a main and a lower main floor (often shown as "M" and "LM" on elevator buttons) if both floors have ground-level exit floors (for example, if the building is on a hill).
First floor
In British English, in reference to typical buildings, the "first floor" is the first floor above the ground; but in American English, it is another name for the ground floor.
Most European countries, Latin American countries, countries of the Commonwealth (except Singapore and parts of Canada, which use the American system), and former British colonies like Hong Kong, follow the same convention as the British. Finland, Norway, Russia, some countries of East Europe, and most of eastern Asia (including China, Japan and Singapore) have a convention similar to the American system.
Hong Kong is unusual in that it follows the British rule in English, but for some old tenement buildings the Chinese characters follow the American rule. The existence of two systems in Hong Kong has led to confusion in water bills there, as the Water Supplies Department attempted to translate some English addresses (using British system) into Chinese (the older buildings use American system but the new ones often use the British system) .
Higher floors are then numbered consecutively in each case, as illustrated by the following table:
| British convention | American convention | Hong Kong convention | Japanese convention |
|---|
| 3rd floor | 4th floor | 3rd floor (and ??, ?? (literally 4th floor) for old tenant buildings) | 4F | | 2nd floor | 3rd floor | 2nd floor (and ??, ?? (literally 3rd floor) for old tenant buildings) | 3F | | 1st floor | 2nd floor | 1st floor (and ??, ?? (literally 2nd floor) for old tenant buildings) | 2F | | Ground floor | Ground or 1st floor | Ground floor (and ?? (literally Ground floor) for old tenant buildings) | 1F or ??? (Ground floor) |
It is obvious that this can lead to some confusion, but little else can be done other than being aware of this issue. If it is necessary to be unambiguous, possibly "Floor X excluding (or including) the ground floor" may be clearer. Put simply, the rule is:
- American English floor number minus 1 = British English name
- British English floor number plus 1 = American English name
Idiosyncrasies
For buildings with entrances on two different floors, such as those built into a hill, different naming schemes may be used in different parts of the world. In North America, the lower floor would typically be called the "ground floor" and the upper floor the "first floor" In the UK, the lower of these floors would be known as the lower ground floor, while the upper would be called either the upper ground floor or simply the ground floor. Some U.S. high-rise buildings follow the British system, often out of a desire on the part of the building's architect or owners to suggest a posh UK/ European setting.
Non-numeric names may be used in some buildings such as hotels; for example, the uppermost level may be PH (for Penthouse), R (for Roof), or OD (for Observation Deck), and the entrance level may sometimes be denoted M (for Main), or L (for Lobby). However, some buildings use extremely idiosyncratic denotation - one hotel in Toronto marks the first six floors as A, M, MM, C, H, and 1 (for Arcade, Main, Main Mezzanine, Convention, Health Club, and 1st floor). The North Carolina Museum of Art, whose entrance is on the third floor up, has the floors lettered C, B, A, (main floor) and O, meaning office.
American and Canadian buildings typically omit the thirteenth floor in their floor numbering because of common superstition surrounding this number. The floor numbering may either go straight from 12 to 14, or the floor may be given an alternative name such as "Skyline". In some Asian countries, because the number four sounds like "death" in Chinese and related languages, it is sometimes skipped in hospital buildings, and some business buildings follow this convention as well.
Other deviations from the norm can be seen around the world. Examples of such deviations include sometimes numbering basement or the lowest level basement as floor 1. Thus, the ground floor may be numbered 2 or even something higher. Another occasional deviation is numbering the ground floor as 0. One sometimes finds buildings where different parts of the same building are numbered differently, e.g., the carparks have a separate level numbering from the occupied spaces at the same level. Often these buildings will have a star next to the elevator button for the floor with the "main" street level exit.
Many shopping centres in Hong Kong use unusual floor labelling systems. For instance, Festival Walk, a high-class mall in Kowloon Tong, effectively has four "ground floors" labelled LG2 (lower ground 2), LG1, G, and UG (upper ground). "Level 1" at Festival Walk would actually be the fourth floor if LG2 were to be considered the ground floor.
Romania uses Roman numerals for floor numbers in postal addresses, but Arabic numerals in all but the oldest elevators.
Floor zero
In buildings in the USA, there is usually no floor numbered zero. The first floor is immediately above the first basement.
Outside of North America, Japan and Russia, the ground level is referred to as 0 or some other local variant indicating the name of the ground floor in that language.
See also
External links
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