New York’s High Line Park is world-famous. But what many people didn’t know – at least before the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK 2021 – is that Vienna also has a former railway viaduct that has been unused for years. The project MISSING-LINK addressed this existing infrastructural situation between the city’s 19th and 20th districts – and did so very successfully! – by finding a use for the nine-meter-wide and one-kilometer-long space and creating a previously missing constructional link between the Franz-Ippisch-Steg and the track bed of the abandoned Stadtbahn railway. The expert jury of the Erste Bank ExtraVALUE Design Award joined the festival audience by celebrating MISSING-LINK and awarding it its top prize: “Triggering a change of perspective is one of the many possibilities offered by design and architecture in a social context. By bridging this overlooked gap in the urban fabric, the project has recognized this potential and filled the resulting solution with content, whose combination of a targeted aesthetic intervention and a concrete range of possibilities is completely convincing. With their huge personal commitment, organizational reliability, and precise planning, the designers have shown a perfect sense of social scale.” MISSING-LINK made it clear that the journey to Vienna’s High Line Park isn’t such a long one: Only a few steps are required to overcome the height difference between the Steg and the former railway. As a result, the wasteland above the arches of the Stadtbahn was accessible for the duration of the festival and an open space was created and occupied by a range of proponents in a location in which this had previously been impossible. Trailblazing? Well, forward-looking at least!