Cheshire West and Chester Council and Chester Renaissance have appointed two specialist consultants to prepare and develop design proposals for the Portico project investment for the City Walls Towers.
Architects Donald Insall Associates have been appointed to work on the Portico brief for an ultra lightweight construction pilot. They will also be working with Gifford Consulting Engineers who they have sub-contracted for their expertise on this exciting project.
The Investment will bring about repairs, restoration and refurbishment of the City Walls Towers involving the appropriate use of ultra light weight building techniques and materials which in turn will be promoted and replicated across Europe as exemplars of archaeological good practice.
Chester’s City Walls and Towers are amongst the City’s greatest assets, visited by over 3 million people annually. The Portico European partners are studying the impacts of investing in cultural heritage and sharing their findings. Chester has built a strong reputation through a number of past European partnerships; Portico is another opportunity to work with experts across Europe to improve and protect our attractions for residents and visitors.
Portico is a cooperative project of the cities of Chester (United Kingdom), Gent (Belgium), Köln (Germany), Utrecht (the Netherlands) and the Initiatief Domplein foundation in Utrecht. The project’s goal is to make the archaeological heritage of the partner cities more visible by developing new methods, techniques and ways of thinking about urban development – above and below ground. The project runs until mid 2012.