Construction of New Mexico’s scientific ghost town has been delayed. The $1 billion city had been billed as a testing ground for developing products from “self-flushing toilets, intelligent traffic systems and next-generation wireless networks.”

Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation, which builds sustainable homes for those in need, has completed its first Frank Gehry–designed home in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward. The LEED-certified house responds to vernacular architecture in the neighborhood.

The font used on a new Obama campaign signage is said to be inspired by Cuban propaganda posters—a “Communist typeface conspiracy theory in the making”! But Alexandra Lange sees less controversial influences, like hand-drawn fruit crate typography of the 1940s.

With the help of a design firm and licensed LEGO artist Sean Kenney, one Chelsea family has incorporated 20,000 of the colorful building blocks into the structure of their apartment.

Vienna’s experimental architectural group Haus-Rucker Co. (1967-1992)—subject of a new show at WORK London—created projects from two-person space capsules to parasitic structures. It’s “critique of architecture and architecture as critique at its best.”

British art dealer Kenny Schacter has commissioned architect Zaha Hadid to build him a custom boat. Preliminary images for the black, 8-meter-long Z Boat reveal “a fragmented, angular vessel sprung from a Christopher Nolan movie.”

Four years after the Beijing Olympics, the Ai Weiwei–designed “Birds Nest” stadium is “looking tired and empty.” The $480 million facility requires $11 million per year in upkeep and hosts money-making experiments, from Segway tours to indoor skiing.