FIGUREHEADS STRUCTURAL ENGINEER-Expression of Interest

Plymouth City Council Arts and Heritage Service is undergoing transformational change with construction of The Box Plymouth, a new arts and heritage complex that extends and combines the City Museum and Library buildings and St Luke's Church, to create new galleries, archive storage and high quality temporary exhibition spaces. The Box will open in spring 2020 showcasing Plymouth's visual arts, media, heritage and archives as part of the city's Mayflower 400 celebrations.

A key element in the new exhibitions will be the redisplay of 14 large nineteenth century ships' figureheads on loan from the National Museums of the Royal Navy (NMRN). The historic woodcarvings were chosen for their relevance to Plymouth and have recently been exhibited under cover at Devonport Naval Heritage Centre (DNHC).

Prior to being displayed indoors, the timber carvings were displayed outside for many years. In the 1950s and '60s they were restored by untried methods including coating the decorative carved and painted surfaces with glass reinforced plastic, (GRP).

Over the years, failure of the resin coatings has led to water ingress causing deterioration and decay to the internal timber structure and potential corrosion of hidden iron fixings. The brightly painted resin coatings appear relatively intact however, disguising timber shrinkage and decay and obscuring the highly detailed original carving of the original sculptures.

Plymouth City Council would like to hear from Structural Engineers with experience of sculpture installation and historic timber structures, to provide independent SE services in support of the conservation, restoration and installation of 14 historic ships' figureheads. Interested Suppliers should express their interest using the "Register Interest in this opportunity" button on www.supplyingthesouthwest.org.uk.

The expression of interest deadline is 23.59hrs on Friday 27th October 2017. Suppliers who express an interest will be sent the Request for Quotation documents at a later date. The appointed supplier will be working with Plymouth City Council's teams of conservators, designers and architects to develop simple and elegant engineering solutions that will deliver the display concept within constraints and conservation best-practice guidelines.