Urban stretches of gravel and gray concrete may not be the typical platform for produce, but, as of today, P.S.1 will prove the exception to the rule as “P.F.1 (Public Farm One),” a new installation, conquers its courtyard. The winning design of the museum’s annual Young Architects Program, “P.F.1” consists of two slanting sheets of cardboard tubes, the highest of which sit 35 feet in the air, that angle downward and meet in the middle of the courtyard. In each tube lie orderly bunches of adolescent vegetables, flowers, and vines, which will dangle down to the ground by summer’s end.

“P.F.1” is the creation of WORK Architecture Company, a Lower East Side-based firm owned by a husband-and-wife team, Amale Andraos, 35, and Dan Wood, 40.

“We wanted to do something that was very strong, very simple, but that would organize the courtyard in a surprising way — almost with one gesture,” Ms. Andraos said of the structure’s form. The couple said they wanted to show the “necessary relationship between ecology and urbanism” by building an urban farm.

The competition, now in its ninth year, requires that applicants to design an urban landscape that includes shade, seating, and water. Winning designs from years past have included urban beaches.

Though the museum describes “P.F.1” as looking like “a flying carpet,” the design more closely resembles a bridge that has accidentally collapsed mid-construction.

Which is largely what happened. “Our initial idea was to sort of make a mega-structure bridge, but one of the issues with that is, of course, you would never see the farm,” Ms. Andraos said. “And it would be too heavy, so the whole thing kind of folded on itself. And then the fold became interesting.”

“We really pushed the structural properties of cardboard to their limit,” she said.

Tucked beneath the larger structure are different “zones” that convert the installation into something of an urban farm-cum-playhouse. In one, visitors can wade through a shallow pool, then dry themselves on the blue terry cloth that winds its way around the base of a supporting column. In another, a speaker placed inside of a column emits audio recordings of cows, roosters, and ducks, while peepholes in another column display videos of farm animals.

A third column, sheathed in bright red, is ringed with cell-phone chargers. “These are for the hipsters,” Mr. Wood said.

The entire installation is solar-powered. Sixteen solar panels — located in a coop that houses chickens and two-week-old chicks — power the water pump, which regularly irrigates all of the plants with rainwater collected on the building’s roof.

The solar panels also power a juicing station, where visitors can turn vegetables into a drink, and several fans are positioned to blow air over potted herbs and, Mr. Wood hopes, create an herb scent.

Mr. Wood and Ms. Andraos founded WORK in 2002, one year after they married, and have since worked on projects including the fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg’s New York studio. The couple currently teaches at the University of Michigan and has taught together at Princeton University in the past.

“P.F.1” will remain at P.S.1 through September, and produce from the installation will be sold at a green market in front of the museum each Saturday this summer.