According to the U.S. Parks Association, by the year 2020 only 10% of the U.S. will have a view of the night sky. Jon Morris, the creative director and founder of The Windmill Factory is attempting to illuminate the issue of light pollution with a new installation (Reflecting the Stars) on Pier 49 in the Hudson River. He and his team have installed 201 solar powered LED lights on decaying wooden pillars in the water. People on the pier will be able to control the lights from a series of buttons that will reveal constellation from the night sky. The installation is on view from sunset till midnight until October 25th. Weekly onsite stargazing events with astronomers have been planned.

On the heels of New Museum’s Festival of Ideas, Guggenheim launches a teaser site for the BMW Guggenheim Lab. The Lab will examine similar topics as Festival of Ideas but will be presented on a larger scale. The project will span over six years making its way through nine major cities worldwide with the first one in New York. Japanese architect firm, Atelier Bow-Wow, have been tasked to design the mobile space that will house the project from August 3 to October 16. The Lab brings together architects, a microbiologist, an activist, journalist, and most importantly, you, together to generate new ideas to improve the conditions of urban life. The space will be free and open to the public.

Maybe words aren’t enough to convey just how exciting Festivals of Ideas For the New City is going to be. Maybe pictures is what one needs to comprehend the sheer scale and radness of this event. Over 100 projects will be on display throughout downtown, free to any willing participant. A photostream has been set up on flickr to show a sampling of some of the projects. Urban farming, Pecha Kucha, murals on Bowery, a compost canteen, all thought provoking, positive, engaging and best of all, entertaining. Get thee to the Festival next week!

Several weeks ago we mentioned the Festival of Ideas for the New City, an ambitious project that will bring together architects, universities, museums, and community groups to envision a city of the future. The Festival will be divided into three parts comprised of numerous projects, a street fair and a conference. We believed in The Festival so much that we wanted to help in anyway in spreading the word. So we teamed up with the organizers to give away a pair of conference passes that will admit two into all the conferences including the sold out keynote with Rem Koolhaas. The rules are simple, starting now till Friday, help us spread the word by tweeting this post, be sure to include @IdeasNYC and @thescout in your tweet. We’ll randomly select a winner from all the participants.

Downtown NYC has long been a hotbed for reinvention, and The Bowery has been at the molten center—making the transformation from halfway houses and grimy punk clubs to exclusive hotels and cutting edge art museums. Therefore it’s fitting that the city’s oldest thoroughfare will be home to Festival of Ideas for the New City, May 4-8. The festival will bring together thought leaders in diverse fields, focused on cross-pollinating ideas and shaping the New York City of the future, and includes a 3-day conference, street festival, and independent projects dotting the Downtown geography. Participants and contributors include Rem Koolhaas as a keynote speaker, The New Museum, Pecha Kucha, Kickstarter, StoryCorps, Brooklyn Flea, Cabinet Magazine, and dozens more. It’s an impressive undertaking, and exciting to see new public forums for ideas take shape as funding for stalwarts like NPR and PBS are threatened. Looking forward to getting swept up in winds of change.

Building Fashion at HL23 merges architecture and fashion together in a series of temporary retail spaces. The event pairs designers with emerging architects through a competition organized by Architizer. None of the selected designers currently have stand alone shops, which gives them a great opportunity to realize how their retail spaces may become. Designers include Simon Spurr, Richard Chai, House of Waris, Supima, Heather Huey, and Siki Im. These pop up shops will last anywhere from 2 months to 2 weeks. Building Fashion will launch September 9th during fashion week starting off with Simon Spurr. HL23 is located at 504 West 24th Street. via Racked.