Vessel

PHOTOGRAPHY MICHAEL MORAN; FORBES MASSIE-HEATHERWICK STUDIO

The eight-level public centrepiece of the new Hudson Yards development, known simply as ‘Vessel’, opened to the public in March this year. With 2 500 steps and 80 landings, Vessel is essentially a climbing frame to lift people above the new square and reveal views across the Hudson River and Manhattan.

When Heatherwick Studios was first invited to design a public centrepiece for Hudson Yards, they felt that to be memorable, they would need to create a structure that visitors might be able to use and touch, not just look at. A design was developed for a new social landmark that could be climbed and explored by everyone.

Inspired by the Indian stepwells of Rajasthan, formed from multitudes of stone staircases reaching down into the ground, the studio became interested in the mesmerising visual effect of the repeating steps, flights and landings.

Vessel rises from a base that is 50 feet in diameter and widens to 150 feet at the top. The 75 interlocking pieces of the steel structure, fabricated by Cimolai in Italy, took over two years to assemble onsite and together offers a one-mile vertical climbing experience. Vessel’s complex architectural framework of raw welded and painted steel contrasts with its polished copper-coloured steel underside that reflects the surrounding city.

It is the central feature of the main public square in the Hudson Yards development, one of the largest real-estate projects in American history, which has transformed a former railyard in Manhattan’s Upper West Side into a new neighbourhood, with more than five acres of new public spaces and gardens.

Forming a major free public attraction at the heart of this new district, Vessel represents an intention to create an extraordinary new kind of public legacy for New York. www.heatherwick.com