Past winners of the annual MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program competition have sometimes been disappointingly lifeless, but this summer's triumphant installation, P.F.1 (Public Farm One), is vital indeed. New York-based WORK Architecture Company (WORKac) transforms P.S.1's perennially concrete-grey courtyard into a green oasis. Constructed, improbably, from fully recyclable cardboard tubes housing a variety of vegetables and other plants, this experiment in urban cultivation joyfully alters its setting.

Before founding WORKac in 2002, Amale Andraos and Dan Wood were principal designers in the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, where they worked on such innovative projects as the Prada Epicenter stores. Three years into their WORKac venture, Andraos and Wood won an American Institute of Architects Design Prize. Then, in 2006, the firm was selected for the first New Practices New York portfolio prize. WORKac's institutional ethic is comprehensively forward-thinking — excited by the possibilities of reimagined contexts and committed to the development of sustainable construction techniques.

This broad vision notwithstanding, WORKac approaches each project with a single defining detail in mind, then expands on it, or applies it consistently to achieve a unified aesthetic. For instance, in jewelry designer Lee Angel's renovated Manhattan office, Andraos and Wood lined the hallway with many jars of multicolored beads. Leading from the reception area to the showroom, the seductive conduit enlivens a previously unremarkable space while embodying the sensibility of Angel's glimmering wares.

More recently, WORKac has worked with crystals, using both substance and shape to dramatic effect in the glamorous interior of the Diane von Furstenburg Studio in New York. Andraos and Wood are also in the process of collecting their ongoing research on "eco-urbanism" — conducted at Princeton University — in a book. Embracing glitz and practicality, as well as the manufactured and the organic, the two projects are emblematic of WORKac's own highly productive pairing.

-Michael Wilson