A good school district, desirable homes and appealing surroundings have helped increase the value of Murrysville homes in recent years.
While the 2006-07 median sale price of Westmoreland County houses has risen by 1.6 percent over last year, Murrysville home prices are up 9 percent for the same period.
And since 2003-04, the median sale prices [...]

Speaking at this week’s 11th Annual East Coast Gaming Congress, Kevin DeSanctis, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Revel Entertainment Group, announced that Arquitectonica has been named the design architect, BLT Architects has been named Executive Architect and Architect of Record and SOSH Architects has been named Associate Architect for the Company’s Atlantic City resort [...]

Turner Construction Company, the leading general builder in the U.S., will commemorate the firm’s 100th anniversary of building in Philadelphia on April 28th. Turner first opened its doors and began shaping the skyline and community of Philadelphia in 1907. Turner has successfully built over 1,000 area projects that include the Bell Atlantic Tower, Mellon Bank [...]

Owners of One Indiana Square today unveiled a rendering for the new façade planned for their 36-floor downtown office building. The new exterior will repair the damages suffered during an April 2, 2006, storm and update the 38-year-old tower with a contemporary design.
“What you see in the rendering is a modern façade to a building [...]

Olana, named by Frederic E. Church and his wife, Isabel, for an ancient Persian “fortress treasure house,” is a work of art in itself, on the order of Claude Monet’s house in Giverny, France, or Albert Barnes’ gallery and arboretum in Lower Merion, Pa. Inspired by a trip to the Near East in the late [...]

KAMAKURA, Japan — Anybody who thinks Japanese all live in cramped quarters should take a look at architect Yoshihiro Takishita’s home.
The peaked roof shelters four floors. Massive, roughhewn, dark wood beams — fitted together without nails — frame the expansive living and dining area. A series of sliding glass doors open to a verandah [...]

Traveling the United States has, among other things, gently tutored me that the residents of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., pronounce their town’s name WILKS-bree, not Wilks-BAR; that the good citizens of Vermont call their capital MontPEELyer, not MontepeLEER, and that that lovely town in southern California is called LaHOYA even though it’s spelled La Jolla. These are [...]

It’s official: Two of the most iconic buildings in the United States — the Empire State Building and the White House — top the list of America’s Favorite Architecture, a public poll of the 150 best works of architecture conducted and released today by Harris Interactive and the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
This time, at [...]

Vornado Realty Trust announced that it has completed its previously announced $689 million acquisition of the Manhattan Mall, a mixed use property located on the entire Sixth Avenue blockfront between 32nd and 33rd Streets in Manhattan. The property contains approximately 1.0 million square feet, including 812,000 square feet of office space and 164,000 square feet [...]

University Park, Pa. — Penn State’s undergraduate program in landscape architecture has been ranked first in the nation, tied with Louisiana State University, according to the 2007 DesignIntelligence Survey of Leading Landscape Architecture Programs. Penn State’s program, celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2006-07, was ranked fourth in both 2005 and 2006 in the annual survey, [...]

Peter Blake, an architect, critic and former editor of Architectural Forum who was known for his lively critiques of Modernism and his friendships with artists, died yesterday at a hospice near his home in Branford, Conn. He was 86.
The cause was complications from a respiratory infection, said his son, Casey Nelson Blake.
One of Mr. Blake’s [...]

Shares of ServiceMaster Co. posted their biggest percentage gain in more than 21 years Tuesday after the nation’s largest provider of lawn-care and landscaping services said it might be for sale.
ServiceMaster stock climbed $1.25, or 10.5 percent, to $13.15, on the New York Stock Exchange, the stock’s largest advance since July 1985.
The Downers Grove-based [...]