Early Life

Duncan was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on July 3rd, 1947. Maurice and his new wife Felicity had just returned from his overseas service in World War 2; and after only a few years in, the Burkes moved on from Canada in 1950 to Los Angeles, California. A year later Duncan was joined by his younger brother Jeff, and their early youth was a picturesque West Coast childhood of orchards, sunshine, and movie going in golden era Hollywood.

However, as Maurice transitioned from his early design and sales work into founding the soon-to-be successful Burke Inc., the family relocated again to Dallas, Texas in 1958. A year later, he would get his first taste of design helping Maurice with the clay-work to redesign the Burke Inc pedestal chairs into the now iconic Star collection. And while Maurice would again pull the family onto new - and European - horizons in 1963, Duncan had already begun working towards a career in design.

With a new home came a new school, and for the Burke boys it was Le Rosey in Gstaad Switzerland. Despite the prestigious surroundings and gilded list of classmates (including, but not limited to, future Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Winthrop Paul Rockerfeller), Duncan and Jeff were artistically inclined anomalies among their more ‘conventional’ jet-setting peers. Jeff would ultimately leave early for a more arts-focused education State-side, but Duncan continued at Le Rosey, and after a summer at a British architecture firm as a draftsman, had settled on industrial design as his path.

Alongside his studies, Duncan sought out as much artistic and mathematical help as he could get, growing close to his teachers in both fields and distinguishing himself as a focused and dedicated student. By 1966, Duncan’s hard work and self-disciplined practice had paid off, and he set off for his post-secondary journey to the United States.

New York and Pratt

In the autumn of 1966, Duncan arrived back in the US to attend Pratt Institute to study Industrial Design in earnest. Pratt and New York proved an excellent fit for him, and he excelled across his studies in both design and fine arts. Pratt’s multi-disciplinary approach to design allowed Duncan to apply himself across a wide breadth of subject matter and methods, creating both fine art pieces and various design concepts from simple household objects to architectural concepts, to children’s toys. All of this work culminated in his first semi-professional award at the 49th Annual Exhibition of the Arts Directors Club in New York in 1969. But alongside more humble and purely artistic works, Duncan began to gravitate towards furniture design in earnest.

His earliest ‘furniture’ was more sculpture than anything, using mesh to experiment with shapes and forms. These ideas eventually crystalized into a more traditional form with his final project: a cantilevered chair utilizing steel tubing to suspend a three-point basket seat that utilized a bare minimum of materials and complexity, while achieving an aesthetically impressive result. This peak example of Bauhaus philosophy on form and function, along with a more conceptual piece of sculpture, secured him top marks on leaving with his degree in 1970. And on returning to Europe, Duncan would have the chance to take his graduating project to the next level.

Orbitas, Ministools, and Beyond

After returning with his degree, Duncan joined Arkana as part of Maurice’s SA Bjorgensen design firm. Working at the Abbeyville Design Studio in Cambridge, his first work was development and prototyping of the original Chelsea and Mushroom collections for Arkana. He also brought his cantilevered chair design from Pratt to develop into his own first line of seating. Alongside engineer and Co-Designer Dave Dickinson, they refined his design from it’s Pratt prototype into the production ready Orbita that debuted at the 1972 Cologne Furniture Fair. The collection was a big success, and attracted the eye of American manufacture (and, ironically, the successor to Maurice’s original Burke Inc. company) Vecta Contracting, who acquired the rights to produce the Orbita in America. Duncan’s thesis project was now a bona-fide international sensation, winning the 1972 Living Magazine Certificate of Furniture Design from the Design Council of Great Britain.

In 1973, the Orbita made its slightly-reengineered appearance in the American market as the Vecta Zermatt. Unlike the Arkana made Orbitas, the Gunter Erble engineered Zermatt’s featured a reinforced sling and straighter back that distinguished them from their free-floating European cousins. The Zermatt would also include some commercial and public variants exclusive to Vecta, most notably the Zermatt Continuous series of public seating. The Continuous would earn Duncan his second major award for the Orbita/Zermatt design: The First Prize of the Institute of Business Designers Product Design Competition of 1973.

Concurrent with this success, Duncan was already preparing his next design for launch with Maurice’s next commercial venture: Macrima. Along with helping to design and prototype the company’s flagship M1/M2 collections, Duncan finalized his own rotational molded masterpiece, dubbed the Ministool: a simple, lightweight, and supremely ergonomic stool with incorporated hand hold and footrest, available in various colour and cushion configurations. Unfortunately, the 1973 Oil Crisis would doom Macrima and its primary lines before they even began; and though Duncan’s Ministool did see limited production in America as the Series 21 stool from Hanno/Holland Inc, its production would come to a quick end as the crisis persisted.

But with both Arkana and Vecta producing his designs across two major continental markets, Duncan decided to take the opening created by the unfortunate turn to broaden his horizons, and began a period of freelance design in 1974. Having relocated to the US the previous year, he would work under contract for a variety of clients on both sides of the US/Canada border. These contracts ranged from graphic and industrial design work, to consulting, and by the next year had expanded to include teaching positions in design at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (now the Toronto Metropolitan University) and Sheridan College School of Design.

To illustrate the breadth of this period: 1974 alone saw Duncan working on fragrance bottles for Chesebrough-Ponds, Lawnmowers for J.C. Penney, store layouts for Trimco Inc, and HMG ammo hoppers for the US government.

This design work however gradually slowed as Duncan began to move into more sales and managerial roles, first at Interiors International in New York in 1975 where he remained until 1977 when Design Institute America employed him as a designer and consultant for a new range of furniture in that same year. The collection itself would be a success, but it would also mark the functional end of Duncan’s design work.

Post-Design

From 1977 onward, Duncan would leave design behind to focus on sales and managerial roles at several companies. Among these companies was the American wing of Maurice’s own Burke/Alpha, whose closure would mark Maurice’s own exit from furniture design in 1981. That same year, Maurice would shift into an entirely new frontier with the founding of Nature’s Best Vitamins in the UK. Duncan would join his brother as part of the new family company shortly thereafter.

Despite his exit from the design world, his designs would continue to be produced until 1992 at Vecta. Even now, people are still struck by their unique presence, and original Arkana and Vecta chairs and loungers are highly sought after.

Personal Life

Across the years, Duncan has turned his attention to a great many interests, the most enduring being a love of classic cars, outdoor work, and classic hand-drawn animation. His collection of original animation cells include frames from Disney, Warner Brothers, and the 1968 cult Beatles film Yellow Submarine, a personal favourite. He is also a dedicated audiophile, with an extensive collection of reel-tapes and audio systems.

Duncan married his wife, Margaret Gamelin, in 1988. After the sale of Nature’s Best to Guinness, the family relocated to Kingston Ontario in Canada, settling into general retirement, and raising two children: Declan and Lauren.

Explore Duncan’s Designs

Duncan’s Art

Along with his professional design work, Duncan also created several sculptures and works of art across his life.
Below is a collection of his purely artistic creations, presented publicly for the very first time.