Historical Projects

The 38-metre chimney at Victoria Park Markets was built in 1905. The site was originally part headland, part foreshore of Freemans Bay; from 1905 the brickwork complex — including the chimney — was built to handle the city's rubbish, with a power generator added in 1907. The 'Destructor', as it was known, ceased operation in 1972 and the complex served as a rubbish depot until 1981. The council planned to demolish it but relented after a public campaign, converting it into the market complex we know today. In 1983, North Shore Scaffolding erected scaffolding around the 38-metre chimney for its restoration — not an easy task. The complex is a Category I Historic Place.

North Shore Scaffolding has built temporary seating for many major events. Two of the most notable historic ones: Pope John Paul II's open-air Mass at the Auckland Domain in November 1986, and the Velodrome arena at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland.

Auckland Town Hall, one of New Zealand's premier heritage buildings, was constructed around 1911 as a world-class concert venue and civic centre at the junction of Queen Street and Greys Avenue. Built of unreinforced masonry, by the 1990s it no longer met seismic standards, and its exterior and interior had badly deteriorated. Auckland City Council commissioned a full restoration and strengthening programme — structural strengthening, architectural retrofitting, modern services, fire protection and heritage conservation. In 1994 a consultant team was appointed; North Shore Scaffolding was chosen as scaffolding partner, erecting scaffolding around the building for reinforcement work that began in January 1996.

For 30 years, North Shore Scaffolding had the enjoyable job of getting Auckland's iconic giant Santa up for Christmas — a five-tonne, 18-metre figure that was a city landmark from 1960 until his retirement in 2020.

The Stone Store at Kerikeri, erected between 1832 and 1836, is New Zealand's oldest surviving stone building. In the 1990s we partnered with a local scaffolding company on its conservation, shrink-wrapping the whole façade while restoration work was carried out.

Tawera Group's conversion of the old Baycorp offices on Hopetoun Street into 91 apartments — all sold six months before completion. Begun in 2014 and completed in 2015, it won Multi-Unit Residential Property of the Year at the 2016 Property Council Awards.

One of the largest civil engineering projects New Zealand has seen — completing Auckland's motorway ring. We delivered an innovative opening roof to assemble the boring machine 'Alice', then supplied 24/7 labour and materials, with upwards of 45 crew on site on a given day.

We're the principal scaffolding supplier across every stage of Auckland's City Rail Link, including gutting and rebuilding the historic Central Post Office and extending the tunnels from Britomart up along Albert Street. Recommended for stage two on the strength of our stage-one work, we went on through all the stages.

We've provided scaffolding to Universal Homes for decades, and Hobsonville Point shows why that relationship works — safe access for every trade, built a step ahead of the other trades, with advanced guardrails keeping even our own crew off the live edge.