Quarter Rounds
Quarter Rounds
Quarter Round, a convex molding commonly found in house construction, lends its name to this project where the quarter refers to the quarter-circle shape used as the subject of this study and round refers to the system of generating the configurations. The project begins with a single quarter circle and examines its four possible orientations through successive 90-degree rotations. The study then proceeds through successive rounds, adding one, two, and three additional quarter circles and exploring the possible combinations of their orientations. A single quarter circle produces four configurations; two produce nine; three produce twenty; and four produce twenty-four distinct, non-repeating configurations. Taken individually, these configurations reveal a compelling range of geometric figures. Considered collectively, however, they begin to establish a richer field of relationships as the individual configurations are brought into closer proximity. The arrangement of single and paired quarter circles can imply the presence of an absent square, allowing void and figure to become mutually legible. Configurations composed of three and four quarter circles introduce increasingly complex figure-ground relationships, producing variations in density, enclosure, and spatial continuity. By reversing figure and ground, the same geometries can be read alternately as increasing openness or increasing closure. What begins as a simple study of the quarter circle becomes an exploration of how repetition, rotation, proximity, and absence generate architectural relationships between figure, ground, solid, and void.