Faculty
Pierre Bélanger
Associate Professor
Department of Landscape Architecture
Profile
Pierre Bélanger is Associate Professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He teaches graduate courses on design and planning in the interrelated fields of landscape, infrastructure and urbanism.
Cited by urbanists and thinkers such as AbdouMaliq Simone, Elizabeth K. Meyer and Jennifer Leonard, Bélanger's research work is published in planning, design and engineering journals and books including Topos, The Landscape Urbanism Reader, Geoinformatics, Journal of Tunneling and Underground Space Technology, Trash, Food, Canadian Architect and 306090. Bélanger’s most recent publications include “Landscape as Infrastructure" (2009), Landscapes of Disassembly” (2007), “Synthetic Surfaces” (2007), "Foodshed: The Cosmopolitan Infrastructure of the Ontario Food Terminal” (2007) and, “Airspace: The Economy and Ecology of Landfilling in Michigan” (2006).
Bélanger has received several honorable mentions in planning and design competitions including 2G’s 2008 Venice Lagoon Competition, the AIA’s 2007 Columbus Rewired Design Competition, the 2007 Hadspen Parabola Design Competition, the 2007 Chicago Prize, the University of Washington in St. Louis’ 2006 Steedman Fellowship Competition and the Architectural Association Environments, Ecology and Sustainability Research Cluster 2006 Environmental Tectonics Competition. Bélanger is recipient of the 2008/2009 Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture awarded by the Canada Council for the Arts.
As a member of the internationally recognized Harvard Project on the City led by architect and urbanist Rem Koolhaas, Bélanger completed graduate studies for the Masters in Landscape Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design where he received the Janet Darling Webel and Norman T. Newton Prizes in Design. Prior to that, he worked as a project manager for Brinkman & Associates, Canada’s largest reforestation and bio-engineering contractor. Bélanger is professionally registered as a Landscape Architect in the Province of Ontario since 2003 and nationally certified in Canada as a Surface Miner, skilled in precision earthmoving and heavy equipment operations.
Combining knowledge from the engineering and environmental sciences, Bélanger collaborates with public agencies, private landowners, regional authorities and a team of interdisciplinary practitioners unilaterally focused on the dual objectives of ecological durability and economic performance in the reclamation of regional systems and large urban landscapes. Through the inception of the Landscape Infrastructure Lab in 2006 (a federally incorporated non-profit planning organization), Bélanger initiates and coordinates a portfolio of projects funded by public/private partnerships that include the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Transport Canada, Foreign Affairs & International Trade Canada, the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council, the Toronto Region Conservation Authority, the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, Cadillac Fairview Corporation, Waste Management Inc. and the City of Toronto. Outcomes from those collaborations include hydrological works for the Pearson Airport Eco-Business Zone, a mapping/fabrication lab at the Daniels Faculty of Design and the Landscape Infrastructures Symposium at the University of Toronto. Bélanger is appointed as a member of the TRCA Etobicoke-Mimico Watershed Coalition Task Force, one of the most industrialized regions in the Great Lakes, and as a director on the Ontario Food Terminal Board, the largest wholesale food distribution facility in Canada.