[harrison_clarke]

at the whitney art gallery (nyc), the ground floor is 1, but the basement is -1. there's no 0 in between

it bothers me way more than it should. i have to tell myself that the point of art is often to evoke emotions, and the rage i feel is included in that

[Y_Y]

In the Boole Library in Ireland (which has entrances on different floors) they use an algebraic (affine) system. There is a floor designated "Q" and then other floors are labelled relatively, "Q+2", "Q-1", etc.

[jonahx]

A possible interpretation....

Using the insight from the top comment that "it all depends on whether u're counting the items themselves (1-based) or the spaces btwn them," the American way of numbering floors is based on counting actual floors (ie, the things you stand on) -- and the one at earth level is one floor. If you go up a flight of stairs, there is second floor to stand on, and so on.

For buildings that go underground, the "-" sign can now act as a signifier of being underground, and the counting works as normal. If you take the stairs down one level, you are on the first underground floor, -1.

Of course, you want to interpret it like a y-axis number line, where 0 is the earth, 1 is "1 floor unit" above the earth, -1 is "1 floor unit" below the earth, etc. This is the "space between" model.

Elegance aside, both can be viewed as logically consistent depending on your lense.

[01HNNWZ0MV43FF]

When my badge doesn't scan at work, that is great art

[umanwizard]

At the University of Arizona (or at least in most of the buildings there), the lowest floor of the building is always 1, even if it’s a basement. So the ground floor is often 2. Maddening.

[tzs]

In the '80s the ground floor of the EE building (Steele) at Caltech was labeled ⏚. Anyone here happen to know if it is still labeled that way?

[fecal_henge]

I'd certainly hope any floor was ⏚'ed.