Heath Moser Post #1

 Hey everybody! This is my first blog post from Birmingham, Alabama working with Environmental Design Studio. EDS is a small firm - five people in total. There are two senior partners, two landscape designers, and me. One partner and landscape designer (Dave and Natali) focus mainly on high-end residential design, the other two (Duane and Jacob) work together on larger-scale land planning and development projects both in and outside of Alabama. EDS actually just won a proposal to do the landscape design work for a senior living community in Gonzales, LA. I hope to get to spend some time working on that project.

I have been here since January 4 and have spent most of my time so far working on residential projects. I have done numerous site measure-ups, drafted base plans by hand and using Vectorworks, drafted schematic designs from  Dave's loose conceptual drawings. I have spent a lot of time rendering and feel a lot more confident in that skill already. For the past few weeks I have been bringing two residential projects up to Construction Document phase - this includes site plans, building/materials layout plans, planting plans, and lots of details. As I previously mentioned, EDS uses Vectorworks for all of their CAD drafting and document layout purposes. I really enjoy it, and I am not sure I will want to go back to AutoCAD!


The scenery in Birmingham is very nice. As I have lived in Baton Rouge for 21 years, I really wanted to go somewhere with lots of topography and Birmingham certainly delivers on this requirement. I live less than ten minutes away from the office and my daily commute does not encounter bad traffic. My apartment is nestled into a steep hill surrounded by beautiful trees and is very peaceful. I have been hiking in Oak Mountain State Park, and I've also gotten to enjoy some outings to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and the Iron Vulcan Statue. The barbecue here is awesome!


I look forward to providing y'all with more updates as my time here unfolds. Once we get a few of these residential projects to a stopping spot, I should be getting started on some land planning work which I am excited to do.

View out of the front of the apartment.

Woke up to this guy outside my window my first day here.

My work stations!
A schematic design I drafted/rendered for an interior courtyard at an assisted living facility here in Birmingham. 

Compiling some information from a site measure-up I did. This house has about 15 feet of elevation change around it from front to back.

A visit to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens

The Iron Vulcan Man Statue on a cold and cloudy day. I hope to go back and get some better pictures when the sun is shining.

Did a 4 mile hike to the King's Chair Overlook in Oak Mountain State Park.

Saw's Barbecue is where it's at (never knew white barbecue sauce was a thing till I moved here. It's really good).

A CD planting plan I have been working on (I know I need to format the labels on the left side a little better).

























 

 

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