I can't really tell the shapes on those pictures, one looks convex rubber and one looks concave. But here is a standard reveal: fryreglet.com/z-reveal-molding/

Also: https://www.trim-tex.com/products/overview/commercial-beads/shadow-reveal-beads/

Ooh. It’s the things that appear the most “simple” and minimal that are the hardest to execute! I was hoping it was just something you stick on and smooth out. We are polishing using the concrete slab as the floor. If this “no baseboard” curve look requires any extra attention to detail or skill or time, it’s probably not going to happen for me. My build crew….let’s just say they are “perfectly nice guys” but not artistes.. ;)

Most people are not artists when it comes to vacuuming the floor either, and that is when a base board protects the wall from abuse.

The concrete guys must be artistes to have a perfect finish touching the wall also

Concrete floors to be finished ,not covered, are much more complicated..…be sure they are specialists….especially if they are unusual in your area

Does anyone know a contractor who can do the fry reglet/Museum/no baseboard look in Northern Virginia? We are building a home and want this modern touch but the builder is discouraging us...

That is a beautiful look, but it is also easily 10x the cost of a standard drywall treatment. Then you get to the doors, which are easily 50x the cost of how most builders handle doors and casing. Building a high end modern home can end up with 500K just on interior doors and drywall when choosing that look.

I did a variation of this, with a taller recess and a flush baseboard, and trimless jambs, and what it really does is turn a job that turns hours into days, a job that takes days into weeks.

I did this in a very small house, and decisions had to be made on a bunch of finish details and how things fitted together that normally would just be covered up with conventional trim.

You will need a number of detail drawings added to the construction documents. I only have four interior doors and a couple open doorways on the entire first floor, and it does probably work out to be 5x as expensive.

And you have to do it for you, because most people won't even notice it, or if they do, will not understand what a detail it is to execute well. I had somebody ask me why I hadn't put any trim up, and when was I going to: did I just "give up". When I said that actually it's a lot harder to finish things instead of just covering up the gaps at the floor and doorjambs with trim, they were like "Gaps? what gaps, isn't there just a wall under there?" So you really have to do this because You like it, because it's not likely to impress most other people. People don't like minimalism.

Your builder may not want to do it because they don't have a crew that can do drywall and trimwork to this level of finish, or they may not want to do it because it adds so much to the cost of the build.

I am not going to make any assumptions about budget, but you will have to have a really big one to do this right.

" but it is also easily 10x the cost of a standard drywall treatment. Then you get to the doors, which are easily 50x the cost of how most builders handle doors and casing "

I call complete BS on those numbers. I agree it is a high end look and not all will be able to accomplish the look correctly but those numbers are absurd.

I would say the recessed base is maybe 5x. If you do trimless jambs with concealed hinges it might be 5x or a little more, it's the hinges and non standard door preps that cost more there and the metal door bucks are expensive. But I used solid core slabs which were not that expensive. I did have them resanded and sprayed in a shop because I wanted a flawless lacquer sort of finish that you can't get onsite so that added too.

I can't give a reliable cost of whether it would be more in new build with a regular general contractor and a tight schedule, because I am using a guy who has been working on it for me on and off for years but he's relatively inexpensive.

Skilled labor to do work of this precision does not come cheap. The labor is the biggest part of the expense for any build.