Duncan is a practicing architect, academic and environmental activist. Author of ‘The Re-Use Atlas: a designer’s guide towards a circular economy’ published by RIBA, (second edition Sept ’24), he has practised, researched, and taught around issues of sustainable development and closed-looped systems for more than 25 years. He recently founded BakerBrown, a research-led architectural practice and consultancy created to address the huge demands presented by the climate and ecological emergency as well as the challenges of designing in a post-COVID world. Over the years Duncan’s practices (and academic ‘live’ projects) have won numerous accolades including RIBA National Awards and a special award from The Stephen Lawrence Prize for the Brighton Waste House - the prize money has since been used to set up a student prize for circular, closed loop design at the University of Brighton.

Duncan is the University of Brighton’s Principal Investigator for the NW Europe NTERREG FCRBE project. He was responsible for curating the pedagogic outputs for the FCRBE team. Said outputs are the subject of a book ‘The Pedagogies of Re-Use’ published by Routledge June 2024, which he has co-edited with the Prof. Graeme Brooker.