Designer
Stephen Burks
Stephen Burks is an industrial designer, product development consultant and educator. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Design from the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology and a Master of Architecture from Columbia…
Biography
Background
Stephen Burks is an industrial designer, product development consultant and educator. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Design from the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University, and has taught at Berea College, Columbia GSAPP, ECAL, the University of Arkansas and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. His studio, Stephen Burks Man Made, takes its name from his 2011 solo exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem and is run in partnership with Malika Leiper.
Signature Style
His practice synthesizes craft, community and industry, advocating hand production as a strategy for innovation and a pluralistic vision of design. He has collaborated with artisans and craftspeople in more than twenty countries on six continents.
Notable Works
For Living Divani he designed the Islands Low Table (2020). The studio has also developed collections for BD Barcelona, Cappellini, Dedar, Dedon, MASS Design Group, Missoni and Roche Bobois, and presented Objects of Belonging in the US Pavilion at the 2025 Architecture Biennale in Venice.
Legacy
Burks received the 2015 Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in Product Design and was a 2019 Harvard University Loeb Fellow. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the High Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
