Created by Stuart Houghton as his urban design Master’s thesis, The Ring is an urban design concept that re-envisioned the existing central motorway junction around Auckland’s city centre as public space offering multiple benefits, based upon restored gully systems.

The existing junction is linked up with the waterfront to form a continuous ring of public space, supporting the structural transformation of the city. 

Stuart's concept combined green space, environmental stormwater infrastructure, walkways and cycleways, community, recreational and arts facilities around a continuous circle of gully and waterfront land that encircles the city centre. In doing so The Ring pulls the adjoining city fringe neighbourhoods into its orbit, bringing severed areas much closer together. It creates a new organisational structure for urban development and infrastructure that can recast the identity of the city, reconnecting neighbourhoods and ecological networks and significantly enriching the lives of Aucklanders.