Wintec project explores history of ring road

Linking the City explores the Hamilton ring road project which has been in development for more than six decades. Photo / Tom Rowland

Hamilton's ring road has been 60 years in the making, with the project finally nearing completion.

The ring road will link all of Hamilton together with a 24km stretch of road as part of the Access Hamilton strategy.

The final section of the Hamilton Ring Road Project is expected to be constructed in the summer of 2019/20 near Cobham drive.

Wintec Media Arts school has been running an exhibition, Linking the City at the Waikato Museum which celebrates the history of the project.

Led by Media Arts lecturer Luke McConnell, Linking the City explores the history of the ring road's development.

Mr McConnell worked with Wintec journalism tutor Richard Walker, who has written a book on the ring road project.

The vision was to create a visual representation of Mr Walker's book.

"I had a look at some of the content and I just saw the idea to visualise some of that information over time," Mr McConnell said.

"I thought it would be interesting to make a map of the city and play a timeline. It is an interesting thing to see the city built."

The centrepiece of the exhibition is a 3D model which displays how the city grew, starting from the year 1500. It shows the growth of the city from its beginnings before humans touched the land and then the recent developments detailing Hamilton's ring road along the way.

"At the start of the year I started working on the project and the animation that went on the model was largely done by Richard, who gathered all the information for the timeline."

"I knew it would be a long project and I don't know why I like to bite off projects that take hours and hours of work, but it worked out quite nicely."

The model also shows how the ring road connected the city along with the two major bridge openings, including the Pukete Bridge.

The bridge, which opened in 1996 as part of the ring road project, is one of the most travelled bridges in the city with 3100 cars travelling daily across it.

Wintec Media Arts students have been involved in the exhibition, which has allowed them to take the lessons from classes and put them into action in the real world.

One student of Mr McConnell's, Etana Zaguri, signed up to help make the project work.

"She developed all the graphics around the wall and designing the timeline - all the little things that you don't really think about but are really important."

Waikato Museum communications manager Dan Silverton said the exhibit has received positive reviews.

"Linking the City is the third in a series of Wintec-driven exhibitions in the last three years showcasing staff and students' work, all of which have reflected a slice of life in Hamilton," Mr Silverton said.

"We have received really positive anecdotal feedback about the exhibition, and the three-dimensional model of Hamilton with the superimposed projection of the development of the city has been especially popular."

The exhibition closes on Sunday October 15.