Welcome to the third Locus Furniture exhibition

Have you ever wandered around Cork City centre on a Sunday?

Apart from a selection of shops opening late in the morning and a few cafés and restaurants, there’s not a great deal going on. So it was rather sad to see, as I did recently, a group of tourist rattling the gates to the English Market on a deserted Princes St.

Often, Cork can feel like a provincial town rather than a European city so I feel a flutter of excitement at the idea of an event taking place bang in the city centre hub, a tourist attraction which will be open after office hours on weekdays, and all day Saturday and Sunday for more than three weeks.

Welcome to the third Locus Furniture exhibition organised by the Cork Guild of Furniture Designers. As with previous years the emphasis is on showing the work of Cork-based furniture designers and makers of contemporary products.

For anyone toying with the idea of having a bespoke piece, a series of Meet the Maker events will provide an environment for chatting to those designers whose work catches your eye — to look at possibilities and what can result from it.

Bespoke commissioning is a very personal thing where the buyer can have a huge amount of input or . leave it entirely to the imagination and skill of the designer maker.

It might come as a surprise to know that such commissioning does not have to cost a fortune. Working to a budget is typical, and can often produce something delightfully unexpected when you’re trying to find a way of making a big idea work within financial constraints. You can also buy from the exhibition floor if something catches your eye, or have the design of an existing piece modified to suit a particular need or taste.

If you’re stuck for a wedding gift and want to give something special — let’s face it, everyone has washing machines and matching kettles and toasters these days — bespoke is worth considering.

Get a few family members or friends chipping in together to have something special made, and this will have an appeal to so many couples. Make sure you involve them in the process, which in turn can be enormous fun.

One of the buzz words in design today is multi-function, where a product can serve more than one purpose. To understand what this means, watch out at Locus for the work of Victoria Breathnach and her novel take on the traditional table nest. Her design has four tables which configure to make a coffee table but can be separated to make four individual side tables or stools.

Then again, something to perform a specific purpose, like a table, can be re-imagined — Martin Horgan’s Coffee Ceremony coffee table is an example, where the design directs the convivial sipping of coffee and allows no space for anti-social laptops and mobile phones. A happy revival of taking coffee or tea as a social event centring on conversation rather than an excuse to send a text.

Locus Furniture exhibition, Half Moon St, Cork, 6-29 Sept, Saturday-Wednesday 10am-6pm, Thursday-Friday 10am-9pm. Admission: Free.

* Next week we’re sitting cosy in the traditional kitchen