Although Benchspace may have only opened their doors in October, the organisation is fast becoming a centre for creative design in Cork. The not-for-profit shared workshop located in the city’s Marina Industrial Park, provides affordable access to work benches and professional standard machinery to local furniture makers and designers, particularly to graduates and early career professionals.
Seán Breen returned to Ireland in 2015 with the ambition of making Cork a hub where entrepreneurs, artists, designers, makers, creatives and techies, work together as part of a vibrant, productive and invigorating creative economy. Sean’s drive to position Cork as a community of creative practice and a destination for international design saw him not only begin the process of establishing Benchspace, but simultaneously enrol in Cork University Business School’s MSc in Management and Marketing programme at UCC.