Rising Currents: Projects for New York's Waterfront

In autumn 2009 The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 selected five interdisciplinary teams of architects, engineers and landscape designers to propose solutions to the effects of climate change on NewYork's waterfront. The resulting proposals, exhibited in 2010, emphasize 'soft' infrastructure interventions that would make NewYork City and its surrounding areas more ecologically sound and more resilient in responding to rising sea levels and storm surges. These innovative projects include the creation of salt- and freshwater wetlands, a Venice-like aqueous landscape, habitable piers and manmade islands, and a protective reef of living oysters. Published to document the exhibition, Rising Currents presents these five projects in detail in essays that summarize the workshop and exhibition, the dialogues they engendered with outside experts and political figures involved in regional planning, and the climate change and urban planning implications of the proposed solutions.