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(image: A drawing of the petals from Atopia's 2007 Olympic sketchbook presentation)

It seems fame and fortune are on the cards for designer Thomas Heatherwick.

The man behind the Olympic cauldron at last summer's London games is behind plans to build a pedestrian garden bridge spanning the River Thames from Temple to the Southbank connecting north and south London.

However the bridge garden might not be at the front of Heatherwick's mind right now after being faced with claims that his Olympic cauldron was based an idea presented to the Olympic committee in 2007.

New York based design studio Atopia claim that the metal petals representing the competing nations at London 2012 were similar to their design submitted to the Olympic organising committee in 2007.

Co-director of Atopia, Jane Harrison, told the Guardian that when they saw the metal petals rise up to form a flaming dandelion that they were "absolutely furious".

Harrison said: "It looked identical to something we had proposed to the London Olympic committee back in 2007, after which we hadn't heard anything."

Indeed if you take a look at Atopia's 2007 Olympic sketchbook presentation there's more than a passing resemblance to Heatherwick's design.

A statement from the Heatherwick Studio said: "This has come completely out of the blue," a spokesperson for Heatherwick Studio said. "We have never seen this project before, nor were we made aware of it by Locog. The creative ideas for the cauldron were very much born from a conversation between Danny Boyle and Thomas Heatherwick."