The Composite Lounge, located in hall 11.1 (where all the exciting modern furniture companies share the floor), announced itself with a bright yellow sign. You followed the light to find yourself in an industrial chic environment, with long metal poles arranged upright, or propped on shipping containers. The poles sprouted branches lit by fluorescent tubes, and were animated by a sound installation delivering the noise of garbage being dumped into landfills.

While the space meant to question the sheer amount of mass-produced objects assembly-lined into our world every day, it actually said more about how seemingly haphazard environments encourage and accommodate spontaneous gatherings. This was the one place, after all, where tired, thirsty people could grab a coffee (at the bar inside one of the containers) and sit down on some designer furniture without feeling like they were defiling the merch. Burks clustered the chairs – Patricia Urquiola's Tropicalia and Ron Arad's Misfits, among them (all by Moroso) – and tied them together. Combined with the storage containers, which themselves were outfitted with pillows, these provided distinct areas. Each was generously populated.

Working out of a studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and around the world through Aid to Artisans, Burks has been gaining steady attention in Europe for his inventive and socially progressive designs: His tables for Cappellini and Artecnica, which involved working with craftspeople in South Africa, put him on everyone's radar.

Beginning May 14, the Nature Conservancy and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum will present Design for a Living World. Along with the brainchildren of such globe-trotting talents as Hella Jongerius and Yves Béhar, the traveling exhibition features Burks' Totem, made from reclaimed native jamwood that Australia's Noongar people, indigenous to the country's Gondwana Link, can use to make and package their herb- and sandalwood-based cosmetics.

As long as Burks continues on this path - making beautiful design that's also socially and environmentally conscience - he'll continue to capture everyone's imagination.