The 16-storey Vessel viewpoint designed by Heatherwick Studio for New York's Hudson Yards development has been temporarily closed after a man reportedly committed suicide by jumping from it.
According to the New York Times, a 21-year-old man named Franklin Washington jumped from the Vessel on Monday 11 January. It marks the third death by suicide at the 46-metre-high structure since it opened in 2019.
Related Companies, the developer of Hudson Yards, has closed the tourist attraction temporarily and said it would consult with psychiatrists and other experts about implementing suicide-prevention strategies.
Dezeen has approached Heatherwick Studio for comment.
Three deaths in two years
Washington, who was a person of interest in the murder of his mother in Texas, was pronounced dead at the scene at around 11.45am on Monday. Three weeks earlier, on 21 December 2020, a 24-year-old woman from New York also died after jumping from the the structure. The first death at the Vessel was of a 19-year-old man from New Jersey in February 2019, before the official opening.

Concerns had previously been raised that the barriers at the viewpoint are not very high and easily climbable. Writing in 2016, before Vessel had completed, Audrey Wachs of the Architects Newspaper warned: "when you build high, folks will jump".
Wachs wondered why the barriers on the structure were so low when high profile architects had been forced to retroactively install barriers over high points in buil...