What’s Happening: The Brooklyn creative nonprofit plans to reopen early September after months of renovations that involved making its former factory fully accessible and fortifying its roof to create New York City’s first observatory.

The Download: It may seem surprising that despite trying for a century and a half, New York City has never built an astronomical observatory. But one will soon sit atop Pioneer Works, the freewheeling cultural nonprofit that, since opening in 2012, has become one of Brooklyn’s most crucial hotbeds for exploring how art, performance, community, and science intersect. Plans for an observatory form a key part of a multi-phase project to upgrade the institution’s 19th-century building—a former ironworks factory that sits near the piers in Red Hook—into a state-of-the-art cultural complex that founder Dustin Yellin has envisioned as a “living organism.” So far, the $30 million campaign has involved making the 20,000-square-foot warehouse totally ADA accessible, building out two mezzanines, and installing air conditioning so the nonprofit can operate in the sweltering summer heat.

Visitors can experience those updates firsthand when Pioneer Works officially reopens on September 6 following months of renovations. The building’s spirit remains, but with a much more fluid experience. “We’ve always envisioned our building as a museum of process, where presentation and production are intricately connected,” Gabriel Florenz, the nonprofit’s founding artistic director, tells Surface. Second- and third-floor buildouts accommodate artists in residence and production facilities like a media lab and design studios. They’re accessed via a brand-new elevator and balconies overlooking the main hall, where exhibitions and performances dramatically unfold. “These elevated positions contribute to a different kind of engagement,” Florenz says, likening them to “mini-stages” that add layers to a performance. “Imagine watching a concert and suddenly, a trumpet player materializes on a balcony behind you, changing your perspective of the audience to performer.”

Renovations also entailed building a stairwell from the open-air garden to the roof deck, where the observatory will be. While its high elevation guarantees to lure Instagrammers with promontory-like views of the Manhattan skyline, the real draw will be a different type of lens—a 16-foot-long restored antique telescope meticulously constructed in the 1890s, the peak of its manufacturing. “The telescope is an enthusiast’s delight: a phenomenal, historic, museum-quality artifact,” Janna Levin, Pioneer Works’ director of science, writes for Broadcast, the nonprofit’s magazine. (In anticipation of its opening, the publication tapped telescope enthusiast Trudy E. Bell to pen a wondrously informative piece on the city’s observatories that never were.) When it opens, it will be free and fully accessible to all New Yorkers.

That said, the observatory isn’t quite ready yet—work still remains on fortifying the roof—but there’s still reason to visit Pioneer Works next month. Don’t miss never-before-seen works by Alejandro García Contreras, whose expressive archaeology-inspired ceramics cross-pollinate eroticism and the occult with pop culture and art history. A solo show from the poet and image-maker Le’Andra LeSeur plumbs how monuments commemorating racist legacies have impacted the Black psyche. And later in the month, the rule-breaking performer Narcisisster will stage her first large-scale work in a decade that promises chemical reactions, lo-fi magic tricks, indoor pyrotechnics, and an assortment of physical feats.

In Their Own Words: “The vision of the observatory has been a beacon we’ve looked to for years while building this whole world below,” Florenz says. “It feels fundamental for us to physicalize this idea that science is part of culture, to how we want our environment to not only engage and present ideas in the sciences but to really connect people to be more aware of science as an intrinsic part of our experience in this world.”

Surface Says: With its location in Red Hook, we’re just relieved that New York’s first observatory isn’t doomed to become a tourist trap.

Have a news story our readers need to see? Write to our editors.

Reach the design world every morning. Find out more about advertising in the Design Dispatch.

Behind an unassuming velvet-curtained entrance in London’s posh Mayfair neighborhood, a labyrinthine series of cozy alcoves hosts the Art Deco–inspired bar and restaurant The Dover. The Italian haunt, launched by former Soho House executive Martin Kuczmarski, is a lavish take on a bygone era of wood-paneled and white-tablecloth dining rooms. Kuczmarski enlisted Quincoces-Dragò & Partners to craft its moody ambiance, for which the firm then turned to Murano glass pendants and chandeliers, classic checkerboard flooring, and a plethora of floor-to-ceiling walnut wall paneling. On the menu, classic Italian savory fare like Branzino filets and a considerable pasta lineup are complemented by an inventive dessert cocktail selection. Highlights there include an Irish cream shakerato and an affogato martini.

Shushana Khachatrian believes that design can—and should—be unlimited. The founder and creative force behind Yerevan-based Studio Shoo has applied this mantra toward realizing hotels and restaurants all across Europe marked by vivid minimalism, thanks to her growing firm enthusiastically custom-designing all the furniture, lighting, and installations inside each. From upcycled floral chandeliers that also serve as ventilation pipes to a hotel’s cantilevered reception desk inserted into a real boulder, her projects abound with playful surprises.

When: Until Jan. 5

Where: Blanton Museum of Art, Austin

What: Wendy Red Star curates the recently refreshed museum’s latest exhibition, a show of nine Indigenous artists’ photography practices. The intergenerational lineup of contemporary artists span mediums and Native nations, yet their contributions coalesce around curatorial themes of “memory, identity, and the history of photography.”

Flavor Paper is a Brooklyn-based wallpaper company that specializes in hand-screened and digitally printed designs. Flavor Paper is eco-friendly, using water-based inks and PVC-free materials when possible. All products are print-to-order for easy customization. Residential, commercial, and specialty products are available.

Surface Says: This studio’s colorful creations are a feast for the eyes, and sometimes even the nose: Their range of clever and often humorous designs includes Pop Art–inspired scratch-and-sniff options.

In Kenya, a booming economy has sprung up around online churches.

“Skimpy footwear” on men in New York is sending fashion critics spiraling.

A light-up live subway map lets you keep tabs on transit—and doubles as wall art.

This student’s $2 estate sale art buy could actually be a rare Chagall pastel.