An exhibition that presents “soft” infrastructure solutions to rising sea levels around New York opens today at the Museum of Modern Art.

Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront features drawings and models conceived by five multidisciplinary teams, led by designers from Architecture Research Office (ARO), LTL Architects, Matthew Baird Architect, nARCHITECTS, and SCAPE Studio. The teams produced their schemes from November to January, during an 8-week architecture-in-residency program at the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, in Queens.

Barry Bergdoll, curator of the architecture and design department at MoMA, says Rising Currents is unusual in terms of museum exhibitions. Though “elegant” as a whole, the five independent pieces are not meant to come together cohesively. Bergdoll hopes the exhibit will catalyze discussion and controversy, but understands that the work is far from done. “We don’t want the ideas to rest here, but percolate with real projects and urban responses to climate change,” he concludes.

The exhibition was initially inspired by a study on urban flooding conducted by the 2007 Latrobe Prize team, led by engineer Guy Nordenson.

Rising Currents runs through October 11.