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Vessel

Vessel was designed by Thomas Heatherwick and Heatherwick Studio as the centerpiece of the Hudson Yards Public Square and Gardens, developed by Related Companies with Oxford Properties. Its steel pieces were fabricated by Cimolai in Monfalcone and Porcia, Italy, then shipped to Manhattan in six separate deliveries — each spending 15 days at sea before a stop at Port Newark and a five-hour barge trip up the Hudson River. On the ground, it took eight months to assemble; the final piece was set into place on December 6, 2017, bringing Vessel to its full 150-foot height above a 50-foot-diameter base. Vessel opened to the public on March 15, 2019.

‍“Vessel is one of the most complex pieces of steelwork ever made… assembled ahead of schedule and with astonishing geometric accuracy.” — Thomas Heatherwick, at Vessel’s topping-out, December 2017

Underneath, a steel frame is wrapped in polished, copper-colored cladding — the surface that makes Vessel change with the light. Structurally, it comes down to 154 interconnecting flights of stairs, 2,500 individual steps, and 80 landings across 16 stories: a full mile of climbing, assembled from 96 prefabricated steel modules and built at a cost of roughly $200 million.

Bringing the design to life took a full engineering and construction team alongside Heatherwick Studio: Kohn Pedersen Fox as architect of record, Thornton Tomasetti as structural engineer, AKT III as design engineer, and AECOM Tishman as construction manager. To keep an open, cantilevered structure like this stable under crowds and wind, engineers built in ten tuned mass dampers — the same stabilizing technology used in tall skyscrapers — tuned on site by measuring how Vessel moved when people had weight on it. Vessel holds up to 1,000 visitors at a time and includes an ADA-compliant elevator for guests who cannot use the stairs.

Vessel isn’t a standalone object — it anchors the Hudson Yards Public Square and Gardens, five-plus acres of plazas and gardens designed by Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects with Heatherwick Studio, ultimately home to more than 28,000 plants and 200 mature trees. Together with the High Line and Hudson Park & Boulevard, it forms part of the largest network of public open space built in Manhattan since Central Park.