Heavy  Meadow : An anchor for a landscape in motion, alive with air, light and texture. It is a fantasy woven to the earth.

In 2008, Heavy Meadow was founded to bring you contemporary designs in landscape architecture that are well built, imaginative and resonate beyond the boundaries of any single site to create real places. Heavy Meadow strives to meet the varied needs of each client, whether that means taking on a project whole, from the drawing board to the construction site, or working with a team and coming in only where our expertise is needed. To determine how best to meet our clients needs, Heavy Meadow works with each to define a scope of work to accommodate his or her schedule and budgetary needs. It's our mission to bring expertise to the table to decipher the limitations and opportunities surrounding each project to produce designs that respond to the nuances and make it wonderful for you. 

I'm the founder of Heavy Meadow. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Here are 10 things I think might be of interest to you.

1) I grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and still consider it a home. The “Land of Enchantment” played a major role in my compulsion to be surrounded by beauty. 

2) I did my undergraduate education at The University of Pennsylvania, where I studied in a program then called, “Design of the Environment.” I graduated Suma Cum Laude in 2000.  

3) My six years in Philadelphia solidified my interest in urban renewal. A year spent in East Berlin, as the city was undergoing major transformation, further influenced my appreciation for how cities can be reinvented. 

4) My first job after college in the profession was with Margie Ruddick, an award-winning landscape architect known for her work integrating water into site design, who I consider my design mentor to this day. 

5) I got my masters in landscape architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) in 2004. I was most honored to receive The Jacob Weidenman Award for the highest ability and achievement in design at graduation. 

6) Following my graduation from GSD, I relocated to New York City. During the course of my four years in the city, I worked for a boutique-sized firm called, Balmori Associates, where I designed the award winning competition entry for a cultural plaza in Shanghai. I also worked as a designer and project manager for WRT,  a  world-renowned planning and landscape firm.  While at WRT, I worked on the design for the winning entry of Rutgers University College Avenue Campus Master Plan, The New York Aquarium Perimeter Vision Competition, and managed the concept and design for The Urban Garden Room at One Bryant Park.

7) In 2008 I fell in love with New Orleans during a vacation and left New York 3 months later. I currently live two blocks from the Mississippi River, where I experiment in my own garden.

8) Academia interweaves with my professional work. I have taught design studios in landscape architecture at the GSD and Louisiana State University. I'm currently on the faculty of Tulane's School of Architecture as an adjunct lecturer.

9) I love my work as the director of Growing Home, a blight alleviation and beatification program for the City of New Orleans. Everyday I face the challenge of revitalizing the city.

10) The trajectory of my life, roughly described above, has culminated in Heavy Meadow.

Nearly five years after Hurricane Katrina, the city is still struggling with how to bring life back to the more than 60,000 abandoned properties that scar its streets. One of the most innovative remedies so far has been Growing Home, a blight remediation program that empowers homeowners to buy vacant lots in their neighborhoods and transform them into green spaces. In 2008 Abigail Feldman moved to New Orleans to help launch and direct the program for the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority. As director of Growing Home, Abigail works directly with homeowners to budget, plan and design gardens on the vacant lots purchased from the city redevelopment authority. She advises individuals and families to determine how best to transform the fallow land into green amenities that will improve their communities in sustainable, meaningful ways.