People to Know: David Kosco, Bassenian/Lagoni Architects

"He taught me how all those tools worked — a set of compasses, T-square, slide rule, scale and triangles. From that point forward, all I wanted to do was draw houses," Kosco says now. "I'd finish my homework every night and go right back to designing."

He's still at it, and today Kosco is one of the most influential designers in America's production housing industry — a shooting star with Bassenian/Lagoni Architects, the Newport Beach, Calif., firm credited with launching design trends that often spread like wildfire across the country. He's someone you should know, because what comes off his drawing board in the next six months may tilt the shape and direction of the housing industry recovery.

It's happened before. When economic recession hit in 1989 and housing sales crashed for three years, Bassenian/Lagoni made its reputation by pioneering small-lot detached housing forms that helped jump-start the California market in the early 1990s. Builders needed small, affordable homes at greater densities to get prices down. But they also needed to stir the imagination of entry-level buyers. Dave Kosco played a major role with production-built homes that proved design excitement and value engineering can co-exist. "Our approach to design was then and is today collaborative," Kosco offers. "It's just the way Aram Bassenian and Carl Lagoni work. Clients are part of the design team. That's something I learned from Carl as a kid just out of college.

"Carl mentored me, and I've mentored others," Kosco says. "We have fun. Many of my clients have told me the most fun they have in home building is the time they spend in our offices, working on design. The results are better because we all learn from each other."

The research showed that consumers at that time wanted identifiable architecture that actually referenced historical homes and neighborhoods. So Bassenian/Lagoni started studying the prominent communities of early California and historic homes in the countries of the Mediterranean. In Italy, they found different architectural styles in the cities, rural countryside and the coastal villages.

"When we put image boards in front of our clients," Kosco says, "what resonated with them were the rural traditional elevations from Tuscany. When we were able to incorporate that Tuscan style of stucco and stone into production-built homes, it caught on and spread across the country."

Today, we face another recession and many of the same imperatives to trigger home sales. To get off square one, builders need smaller, smarter, greener, more affordable homes for entry-level buyers. But to really kick recovery into gear, they need to find that hot button that will give move-ups a reason to jump back into the market and buy a new home. And once again, Bassenian/Lagoni is doing focus groups and Dave Kosco is drawing new house plans.

"This time around, it will be different," Kosco says, "because we are no longer designing for the baby boom generation, and practically everything we've built since the 1970s has been aimed at boomers. Now the target for entry buyers is Gen X and Gen Y. Combined, those generations are bigger than the baby boom."

The oldest members of Gen Y are now in their mid-20s and entering the ownership housing market, Kosco points out. "We've had Gen Ys in our recent focus groups and uncovered some fascinating differences that we think will influence where production housing needs to go.

"I have a 15 year-old daughter," says Kosco (now 45), "and what she wants in a house is totally different from what I wanted at that age."

Kosco says the first thing builders need to accept is that the market of 2004 is gone forever. "It's going to be a much tougher business," Kosco asserts. "They'll never again make the kind of margins they made in the early 2000s. And more density is unavoidable."

While such ideas may not conform to current zoning in many municipalities, Kosco believes that may change. Cities are caught in the grip of this recession and need housing recovery as much as builders, he says. So Bassenian/Lagoni is taking their concepts directly to city halls. "We've showed our R&D work to them and the cities are amazingly receptive," Kosco says. "It's very different than when we go in with builders, whom they always suspect of having ulterior motives. They fear builders want to make a profit at the city's expense."

Southern California is still the Mecca of housing design. When Dave Kosco graduated from Kent State University in Ohio in 1986, he didn't hesitate to head for the Left Coast. "I moved across the country with $200 in my pocket and not a single lead for a job," he says. "But I wanted to design houses, and I knew this was where it was happening."

The plethora of high-profile design firms in California attests that's still the case, even though one of the biggest trends of the last twenty years — Traditional Neighborhood Design — originated and grew east of the Mississippi. When it comes to floor plans and elevations, California designers still set the benchmarks.

It's worth watching what happens next in Lotus Land. That's especially true if it turns out that Kosco is right about Gen X and Gen Y buyers' being totally different from baby boomers when it comes to style preferences. Certainly, we know California is more challenged on density issues than most of the rest of the country. The California designers already have a lead in designing not just land plans but streetscapes and floor plans that make detached homes at densities of seven to 10 units per acre, livable and appealing to buyers.

When the new California designs begin to hit the market, as recovery takes shape, it will certainly be worth a trip to see them. Or you could go today and just peek over Dave Kosco's shoulder.