Apartments

The historic Star Building started life as Papakura’s first Cinema. it was one of the first buildings in South Auckland to be earthquake-strengthened under the new laws. The building kept its special original 1920’s exterior but needed major renovations and restructuring to bring it up to standard. The whole internal structure of the building was rebuilt and fitted out with six upmarket apartments upstairs and three new shops downstairs. Also, there were renovations to the two existing shops on the main street.

Bringing light into the apartments upstairs was challenging, due to the original window sizes - so skylights were installed. Chris Heineke used his flair to angle the skylights into each room, creating a special feature that brought a large shaft of light into the space. The company supplying the skylights heard about his extra craftmanship and while in NZ came to look at how he had skillfully integrated their product into this.