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In architecture, a quadrangle (or colloquially, a quad) is a space or a courtyard, usually rectangular (square or oblong) in plan, the sides of which are entirely or mainly occupied by parts of a large building (or several smaller buildings).

The word "plan" is a noun, therefore I believe it to be a typo (no article). Another word that comes to mind is the word "plane" which is an adjective as well as a noun:

TFD def: noun

  1. Mathematics A surface containing all the straight lines that connect any two points on it.
  2. A flat or level surface.

TFD def: adjective

  1. Mathematics Of or being a figure lying in a plane: a plane curve.
  2. Flat; level. See Synonyms at level.

But these also don't fit for me somehow.

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  • ?? a plan is a plan ... like a map is a map and a photo is a photo and a blueprint is a blueprint. It's incredibly straightforward. – Fattie Sep 09 '21 at 19:35
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    @Fattie Who is that comment addressed to? This is a site for people learning English; that naturally means that many of the answers seem "incredibly straightforward" to native speakers. – IMSoP Sep 09 '21 at 20:59
  • I was addressing CanadianYankee's comment. – Fattie Sep 10 '21 at 02:53

4 Answers4

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In the context of architecture, 'in plan' means 'as viewed from above' (it's the same as 'bird's eye view'). It's because building plans are drawn as if you're looking at them from above. So 'rectangular in plan' means that the building is the shape of a rectangle when you look at it from a bird's eye view.

Quuxplusone
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AnonFNV
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    OP wants to know why no article is used before "plan." Please explain. – Jeffrey Carney Sep 07 '21 at 14:24
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    And it is contrasted with elevation which is the view from one of the sides, hence front elevation and so on. – mdewey Sep 07 '21 at 15:55
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    I'm not satisfied that my explanation for why 'plan' doesn't need an article was correct. I know it follows the same grammar rule as these examples: 'The house is red in colour' 'The music is pleasant in tone' 'The subject is smooth in texture' 'The quadrangle is rectangular in plan.' But I'll have to leave the explanation to someone who understands it better. – AnonFNV Sep 07 '21 at 16:48
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    I don't know for sure, but I suspect the underlying phrase is "plan view", which in the architectural and drafting contexts, means, more or less, "as viewed from above". So, I would guess that the OPs phrase "in plan" is short for "in plan view", and success since "plan" here is an adjective, it doesn't take "the". – Dale Hagglund Sep 07 '21 at 23:05
  • I can't edit my comments, or I'd delete the word "success" from my final sentence. – Dale Hagglund Sep 07 '21 at 23:07
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    @Dale Hagglund: You can't edit your comment, but you can delete it and replace it with a corrected version. (Copy the comment text into your clipboard before deleting it.) – A. I. Breveleri Sep 08 '21 at 01:09
  • @A.I.Breveleri Thanks, I should have been able to figure that out. The error's not egregious, so I think I'll leave it alone. – Dale Hagglund Sep 08 '21 at 01:49
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    @AnonFNV "plan" in an adjective here. The noun following "plan" would be "view", but since it is the only noun possible in the context it is omitted. You don't say "this shirt is available in the black, the white or the blue". – alephzero Sep 08 '21 at 15:07
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    @DaleHagglund It is definitely short for "plan view", as opposed to "elevation [view]", "isometric [view]", and "perspective [view]", among others. As in, "In plan, we can see the length of this drainage line, while over here in elevation we see the height of the windows." – Todd Wilcox Sep 09 '21 at 08:28
  • @alephzero I agree with others that even if "plan" is short for "plan view", it is being used as a noun here; expanding to "in plan view" wouldn't change the grammar. I think it's equivalent to "The plan of the building is rectangular", where "plan" is clearly a noun. Your colour example is not equivalent, because "black" is the value, not the aspect; the equivalent would be "this shirt is black in colour" = "the colour of this shirt is black". – IMSoP Sep 09 '21 at 11:18
  • @DaleHagglund - if you "don't know for sure" best to delete your comment. It's not "short" for anything (what does that even mean?) any more than "red in color" is "short" for something. The confusion here is staggering. – Fattie Sep 09 '21 at 19:41
  • This QA is long in confusion, short in facts. – Fattie Sep 09 '21 at 19:41
  • @ToddWilcox it is definitely not " ' short ' " for anything. If you believe it is, tell me now what "red in color" is short for. – Fattie Sep 10 '21 at 02:59
  • @Fattie “Red in color” is the long form of just “red”. Seems like you’re on some kind of crusade about this - not sure why. I’ve had three years of training in technical illustration and won awards. In that world, “plan” is a shorter way of saying “plan view”. So… you’re just wrong. If you don’t know what the phrase “short for” means then I think you might be the person who is lacking understanding of the facts here. – Todd Wilcox Sep 10 '21 at 05:01
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    There are two different ways of explaining the sentence structure. You could say 'in plan' is an abbreviation of 'in plan view'. Or you could say 'rectangular in plan' is structured like 'red in colour', where 'plan' is a property of the building. I don't know which interpretation is correct (they've actually been posted as two separate answers now, and they are both getting votes), and I don't think it's worth arguing about since they both work. You can't really mix the two interpretations together though. I've commented OP's question "why does plan have no article?" onto both answers. – AnonFNV Sep 10 '21 at 07:26
  • @Fattie "If, bizarrely, you have never heard it before, please do not add wildly, bizarrely, confusing comments.", "staggeringly misguided, have utterly no connection to anything", etc. Do you ever stop to read your comments before posting them, and consider your tone? – Chris H Sep 10 '21 at 09:14
  • @alephzero - "You don't say "this shirt is available in the black, the white or the blue". People working in UK shops say that kind of thing. – Michael Harvey Sep 11 '21 at 12:06
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I don't know the technical term for it, but I believe this is a common pattern for nouns describing aspects of something:

  • the sky was red in colour
  • he was stocky in build
  • it was square in shape

The pattern is that "X (concrete noun) is Y (adjective) in Z (aspect noun)" means roughly "the Z (aspect noun) of X (concrete noun) is Y (adjective)". So "the sky was red in colour" means "the colour of the sky is red", and "the building is rectangular in plan" means "the plan of the building is rectangular".

The "plan" in this case is a noun meaning something like "shape as seen from above", as opposed to "profile" or "elevation", meaning "shape as seen from the side or front". As others have pointed out, this comes from the architectural meaning of "plan", for a flat diagram of a building in such an overhead view.

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    Also to be noted is that, geometrically speaking, "in plan" might be as opposed to "in profile". For example, "The Taj Mahal is roughly rectangular in plan (viewed from above) but has a very complex shape in profile (viewer from the side)" – Luke Griffiths Sep 08 '21 at 00:26
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    This reminds me of that Shakespeare line which I only remember/know because Picard quoted it to Q: "What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!" – Shufflepants Sep 08 '21 at 22:08
  • I think this "value in aspect" pattern is a useful way of understanding the grammar, but is there a technical reason why 'plan,' 'colour,' and 'build' have no article in this pattern? – AnonFNV Sep 10 '21 at 07:14
  • @AnonFNV "Why" is always a slippery question, and it's tempting to say "because that's how it works", but I'm sure linguists would attempt to fit it into some wider framework. Unfortunately, I don't know a name for this construction, so don't know where to start looking for such analyses. – IMSoP Sep 10 '21 at 09:07
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In this context "plan" is an adjective describing a drawing or view and is distinct from "section" and "elevation". See Plan, Section, Elevation Architectural Drawings Explained In that phrase "in plan" is an abbreviation of "in plan view".

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    "A plan drawing is a drawing on a horizontal plane showing a view from above. An Elevation drawing is drawn on a vertical plane showing a vertical depiction. A section drawing is also a vertical depiction, but one that cuts through space to show what lies within." – Mazura Sep 08 '21 at 08:57
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    the web site is crap. "in plan view" is meaningless. "in plan" is an utterly normal phrase, such as "yellow in color" or "lost in love" or "big in football". – Fattie Sep 09 '21 at 19:43
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    OP has asked why 'plan' has no article. If 'in plan' is an abbreviation of 'in plan view', why does 'plan view' have no article? – AnonFNV Sep 10 '21 at 07:32
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A plan is:

enter image description here

aka blueprint; a schematic drawing of something from overhead, rather like a map; a piece of paper with marks on it indicating the arrangement, layout, of the building or device in question.

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    This doesn't explain the structure of the sentence. You can't say *"it is rectangular in map", or "...in blueprint", so those comparisons are not helpful. Knowing that it means "overhead view" is certainly important, but already covered by other answers, which also explain the rest of the grammar. – IMSoP Sep 09 '21 at 20:55
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    Suit yourself. The OP doesn't know what a plan is. It's not complicated. (Notice the incorrect definitions given in the question.) – Fattie Sep 10 '21 at 02:54
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    ? You often say, exactly, such-and-such in map, or, such-and-such in blueprint. (For example, "it looked awesome in blueprint".) – Fattie Sep 10 '21 at 02:55
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    "it looked awesome in blueprint" sounds awkward to my ear, but I can understand what it might mean. So, is your interpretation of "the building is rectangular in plan" something like "the building is rectangular on the architect's blueprint, but might not be in real life?" – IMSoP Sep 10 '21 at 07:47
  • I'm still baffled by your last comment, and surprised to see two people apparently agreed with it. I genuinely can't imagine what "in map" could even mean. Maybe I'm lacking in imagination, or there's some regional variation here? – IMSoP Sep 10 '21 at 15:37
  • it's no different whatsoever from a zillion similar phrases, "it sounded good in theory". sure, for many words it may be more common to include an article. for example a car designer will say "this looked better in the clay" although you might say "this was better in clay". but surely any native speaker would know there are HEAPS of cases like red in color, good in theory, square in plan, pointy in elevation, lucky in love where you don't use one. "blah in plan" is a wholly commonplace phrase, google a zillion examples – Fattie Sep 10 '21 at 16:58
  • Yes, I agree that "it is X in Y" is a common construction, and have written an answer explaining what I think that construction means (the only answer on this page you haven't left a comment criticising). However, I don't think you can apply it to any noun, and I can't think how any sentence could be formed from the template "it is [something] in map", any more than you could have "it is [something] in dog". That's why I don't think comparing "plan" to "map" is helpful for explaining this sentence. – IMSoP Sep 10 '21 at 17:17
  • "x in color" is wholly commonplace (google to check); "x in plan" is wholly commonplace (google to check); "x in elevation" is wholly commonplace (google to check). For the OP (problem 1 the OP faces), the two definitions mentioned in the OP are utterly irrelevant to the definition at hand. For the OP (problem 2 the OP faces) "... in plan" is an utterly, utterly commonplace phrase in English. It is not "short" for something, it is completely, utterly, idiomatic and commonplace (google to check) - just like very many other similar forms ("in spirit, in heart, in color, etc etc") – Fattie Sep 10 '21 at 20:58
  • I suggest you read my answer, then reread my comments. That comment shows that so far you have done neither. – IMSoP Sep 10 '21 at 21:39