Trying to determine the height of a building in storeys can often be an exercise in futility. For many developers around the world, superstition takes hold, and it may prove easier for the inquiring mind to simply count the number of physical floors in a building. While triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13) usually disrupts sensical building numbering in the Western world, tetraphobia has similar implications in the East Asian and Southeast Asian nations. 

A Hong Kong apartment elevator, image by Flickr user glenn forbes via Creative Commons

In many branches of Chinese, as well as Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean, and Sino-Vietnamese, the word denoting 'four' has a similar sound to the word for 'death.' As a result, these regions take great steps to eliminate the number four from everyday life. Elevators will skip the fourth floor and any floor whose number contains a four. In multi-building complexes, what would normally be 'Block 4' would likely instead be labelled 'Block 3A'.

Vancouver has banned non-sequential numbering, image by Marcus Mitanis

Where there's a fusion of Western and East Asian cultures, buildings may omit the thirteenth floor along with all floors with the digit four in them. That occurred in Toronto, where the 20-storey Tango2 is marketed as having 23 floors. Though the practice may seem harmless, firefighters have warned that the confusion could potentially have lethal consequences. In 2015, the City of Vancouver banned non-sequential numbering schemes. New buildings will no longer be allowed to skip numbers, ending a common building convention in the multicultural metropolis.