Tower Hill Apartments
A 56-metre fully enclosed scaffold around an occupied CBD apartment tower — with access from only two sides.
Tower Hill Apartments at 1 Emily Place is a 56-metre residential tower in the heart of Auckland's CBD. We designed and delivered a fully enclosed scaffold with a clear-span Keder XL roof — around a building that stayed fully occupied, on a site we could reach from only two sides.
Access was the first problem. Only two sides of the building could be reached easily, and one of those was a podium. With almost no lay-down space on a busy CBD street, we planned purpose-built methods to move gear from truck off-load, up to the podium and on to the loading bays.
The scaffold loads had to go somewhere without disrupting the people who lived there. Engineered back-propping carried them, so the basement car park stayed in use throughout. Steel on the north podium transferred loads into the back-propping, and 44 brackets on multiple faces of the building carried the rest without damaging the structure. Where brackets couldn't connect to the building, two 460UB82 beams carried a continuous section of scaffold across the gap, keeping the workface unbroken.
A dedicated GEDA BL2000 hoist, supplied and installed by North Shore Scaffolding, went in early so materials could move quickly and independently from truck to the upper loading bays. Over the top, a Keder XL clear-span enclosure kept the workface dry. Its tarpaulins could be opened and closed quickly, even in wet weather, so timber framing and roof steel could be lowered in when needed. The roof sections themselves were built at ground level and lifted into place by crane.
The temporary works were CPEng-certified, covering the scaffold, steel, back-propping and the load path through the structure. Progressive catch fans went up as the scaffold rose, containing any dropped materials within a few metres. The job was completed with no lost-time injuries, no drops from height and no damage to the building or its surroundings.
Tower Hill Apartments is a finalist in the SARNZ 2026 Awards, in both the Enclosed Scaffold and Commercial Project categories.