Blake Belanger, PLA, ASLA
Associate Professor Landscape Architecture and Regional & Community Planning
1091 Seaton Hall | 920C N. Martin King Jr. Drive
Manhattan, KS 66506
T: (785) 532-5961
F: 785-532-6722
Blake Belanger, PLA, ASLA is a licensed landscape architect and urban designer with over twenty-five years of combined experience in professional practice and academia. While in professional practice, Professor Belanger’s work centered on urban design, community planning, civic space and parks, and site planning at various scales. He joined Kansas State University in 2007, where he teaches design studios, theory and research seminars, foundational lecture courses, and serves on graduate student advisory committees. He is an engaged scholar specializing in place-inspired brownfield regeneration visioning and has led or co-led service-learning projects with communities in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan, Montana, and Colorado, resulting in dozens of student awards from ASLA and APA regional chapters. Professor Belanger has been recognized with numerous teaching and research awards, including the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture Excellence in Design Studio Teaching Award (2012), the Big 12 Fellowship (2017) the College of Architecture Planning and Design McElwee Teaching Award (2015, 2024), the Mary Jarvis Emerging Faculty of Distinction in Landscape Architecture (2010), the Kansas State University Academic Excellence Award (2011, 2014, 2016), the LARCP Teacher of the Year Award (2024), and the TAB+LARCP Faculty Brownfield Fellowship (2024-2027). Professor Belanger holds a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from Michigan State University and a dual Master of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design from the University of Colorado at Denver, where he graduated with honors and was the lead designer of the winning team in the 2005 ULI / Gerald D. Hines Urban Design Competition.
Professor Belanger focuses on community-engaged scholarship, urban resilience through brownfield redevelopment, graphic representation, and the creative design process. In “Situating Eidetic Photomontage in Contemporary Landscape Architecture” (Belanger and Urton 2014), he and his co-author present a framework for understanding the role of – and potential for – photomontage in landscape architectural design process and communication. Professor Belanger teaches Unlocking Creativity, a university-wide elective designed to equip students with methods for generating creative ideas and the confidence to find their inherent genius.