Bassenian/Lagoni Architects of Newport Beach, California is an architecture and land planning firm specializing in the design of residential communities – from single-family detached and higher-density attached to multi-family, resort, and apartment communities. In addition, they provide extensive master planning and site-specific land planning services. One of the United States’ largest residential firms, Bassenian/Lagoni pioneered some of the first small-lot detached homes to be marketed in this country when California housing hit record prices in the early 1980s.

In the 1990s, housing demand in Northern California has grown to the point that many neighborhoods are reacting negatively to further development. Zoning boards and planning commissions are increasingly hostile to developers who want higher density communities and lower construction costs. Local governments are intent on maintaining quality and slowing construction pace down. It is in this environment that Bassenian/Lagoni is particularly adept, expertly fitting impressive homes onto small lots.

One project that exemplifies the firm’s versatility and design efficiency is Classics at Burgess Park in Menlo Park, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. This project is an in-fill community on a 3.7-acre site, surrounded by $750,000 homes built in the early 1950s.

The firm’s challenge was to develop housing designs that blended into the contextual fabric of the existing high-end neighborhood and address the community’s concerns regarding density and aesthetics, while meeting the city’s tight building restrictions. This was no easy task, explains Ken Niemerski, AIA, Associate Vice President and Production Department Manager for Bassenian/Lagoni Architects. "Existing homeowners are often loath to see high-density projects go up in nearby sites. Our client Classic Communities’ primary concern was to establish and maintain a harmonious relationship with the community."

The existing neighborhood architecture was a mixture of Northern California Bungalow and Craftsman styles, with wood shingle siding, low-pitched roofs, and ‘rear-loaded’ lots, featuring garages at the back of the lot. The city specifically required that lot widths be increased and that the plans be designed to create a distinctly horizontal feel to the elevations. An additional design concern of neighbors was that the garages be rear-loaded, to prevent the houses from looking alike. "However, a strictly rear-loaded design wouldn’t enable us to achieve our design density goal of 33 units on 3.7 acres and still meet the city’s requirements," said Niemerski. "We had to maximize our creativity and design efficiency to create and ‘sell’ an aesthetically-pleasing land plan and design, featuring alternating front- and read-loading garages."

Niemerski and his team held dozens of meetings with neighbors and city officials and created 20 different designs incorporating their feedback. "We relied on DataCAD® (from DATACAD LLC, Avon, CT) to create the numerous design variations in a compressed time frame," said Niemerski. Bassenian/Lagoni uses 40 seats of DataCAD, a CADD software program that is specifically tailored for architectural design.

"DataCAD enables us to work in a highly efficient manner," said Niemerski. "We have used the software for twelve years and developed an extensive library of customized templates and drawing files. These templates enable us to create and modify house plan designs."

"Another big advantage DataCAD brings to our firm is how speedily our architects can gain proficiency with the software and be productive," continued Niemerski. "We are continually hiring new staff. Their experience level ranges from recent, computer-literate graduates to seasoned architects who may be more comfortable drafting by hand. This creates a unique challenge in integrating staff. The big issue in our work environment is cost effectiveness, and that is why we needed a CADD system that is intuitive for architects. The DataCAD software talks the architect's language. Architects designed it, and it relates to subcontractors as well as it does to our staff. Because it is architect-friendly, we only need a week or two to have our new staff fully trained on the program."

Hard work and innovative design have paid off for Bassenian/Lagoni. The firm not only achieved their design density goal of 9.2 units to the acre (slightly lower than the average in-fill development), but has won a merit award for the final design of Classics at Burgess Park from the 1999 Gold Nugget awards, a prestigious design award program sponsored by the PCBC Western Building Show and BUILDER Magazine. Community acceptance is evident in the fact that all 33 units were sold in just a few months.

Niemerski expressed gratification at the award, stating, "We want to know that the customer has a unique place to live in--not only a unique house, but also a unique community. That is what makes our communities desirable to homeowners. Delivering good designs that provide a better quality of life to the homeowner is what reinforces our design philosophy toward the final product."