We don't often think of New York City as a chain of islands, but it is. That means the nation's most populous city is also one of the most likely to be affected by rising sea levels. More than 20 percent of Lower Manhattan could be submerged by the end of the century, according to the Architecture Research Office, a New York-based firm. City officials are already planning for massive impacts to everything from transportation to infrastructure to housing. Now the Museum of Modern Art has given the city visions of a future in which it adapts to, and even embraces, the rising ocean.

"I don't think we have to go to Venice to imagine what it's like to live with too much water," says Barry Bergdoll, the museum's Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design. "Anyone who rides the subway knows that on a day when there is severe rainfall, New York is already incapacitated by water that's coming from above, so just imagine if this is enhanced by higher sea levels. The city is not ready for this."

To help it prepare, Bergdoll invited five interdisciplinary teams to re-imagine various sections of New York's harbor. The results are on display now through mid-October in the exhibition Rising Currents: Projects for New York's Waterfront. The teams conjure up spongy streets, dangling buildings, a reef made of glass, and fresh oysters from the now-polluted Gowanus Canal. In this interview with OnEarth, Bergdoll gives us an audio tour of their concepts for the city's future.