Renowned furniture maker Joseph Walsh's home and studio in County Cork

For the past 20 years, Joseph has been ushering the 18th-century farm buildings into the next stage of their evolution, and today they are a centre for designing, making and exhibiting his work. The house in which his grandfather was born is now used as a place for meetings and a staff canteen. Across the courtyard, the former potato stores have become an office, gallery and studio space. Beyond a field is a former hay store in which monumental-scale pieces are made by hand; the vast proportions of the building has allowed a socially distant working environment since long before the term has existed. And the team has been busy over the unsettling spring and summer this year. The studio’s projects have long lead times and there were existing commissions to fill; new projects came in and, with them, the promise of many more months of work for Joseph’s employees.

The work is extraordinary, with layer upon layer of wood veneer forming structures that twist, turn and spiral in ways that seem to defy the laws of physics. A series of large-scale sculptures comes under the category of ‘Magnus’; one-off, site-specific creations – which are the mainstay of the studio – sit within the ‘Opus’ collection; more domestic pieces are part of the ‘Dommus’ portfolio of work. The Latin names that Joseph gives his creations might seem self-consciously lofty if it were not for the fact that they are genuinely majestic things to behold.

Each begins life as a free-form sketch: fluid, continuous lines of pencil on paper that call to mind the seance-induced spirit drawings of the Victorian period. Developments in technology have made it easier to interpret these other-worldly scribbles into three-dimensional forms, which are later turned into small models, then refined and eventually scaled up to the final size.

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He has hired makers and technicians from around the country and around the world: Japan and Taiwan, Germany, France, Canada and beyond. And there is a real sense of a shared purpose, a drive towards a common goal similar to what the men who once farmed this land might have felt. Joseph says that, when he was a child, all the farm workers used to come in from the field to have lunch together and he wanted to recreate that atmosphere. Twice a week, Una Crosbie, who runs a local café in Kinsale, brings lunch to the e cottage-cum-canteen for all of the makers, technicians and administrative staff to share. ‘It’s hard to keep up a workplace disagreement when you’re asking someone to pass the salt,’ Joseph explains. At one o’clock, drawn by the aroma of shepherd’s pie wafting across the yard, the team wind their way from their stations for lunch.

Over the three days that the photographer Mark and I spent with Joseph, it struck me that although he seems a fairly private person – far more fluent when speaking about anything other than himself – he is also someone who values and nurtures social connections. He has a knack for gathering people together to share their ideas and experiences.

In September 2017, he launched Making In, an annual one-day event held at the farm, to discuss and celebrate design, art, craft and architecture. There are seminars led by creatives from all over the world and guests come from far and wide (and many from just up the road). Last year, the local hotels were completely booked out, creating a buzz in the community and a boon for the local economy. This year’s event will no doubt be different – smaller, and possibly filmed so that those who are unable to travel can still participate – but it will go ahead.

When Joseph, Mark and I went for dinner in Kinsale on our last night, I noticed that many of the people we encountered seemed to know who Joseph was; there were plenty of nods of the head, hellos and quick chats. I couldn’t decide if it was because the designer is something of a local celebrity or if Kinsale is such a small town that everyone seems to know everyone else. Perhaps it is a bit of both.

Joseph Walsh: josephwalshstudio.com