He rejected all of the plans, at which point a colleague introduced Ross to Heatherwick.[2] Six weeks after they talked, Ross accepted Heatherwick's proposal immediately because it "had everything I wanted."[6] In an interview with designboom, Heatherwick said that his design for Vessel originated from a childhood experience when he "fell in love with an old discarded flight of wooden stairs outside a local building site."[3] The media first reported Heatherwick's commissioning in October 2013.[4][17]