Dive Brief:

• The 98-story, $1 billion Vista Tower in Chicago — which broke ground this week — will be the tallest building in the world designed by a woman-owned architecture firm, according to the Chicago Tribune.
• The Jeanne Gang-designed building's units are selling from $1 million to $18 million each, and the 1,144-foot skyscraper is slated to be the third-tallest in Chicago, after the Willis Tower and Trump Tower.
• The project, which will also be the biggest real estate investment by a Chinese company in the U.S., will feature 406 condominiums, an amenity suite on the 47th floor and a hotel, according to MarketWatch.

Dive Insight:

In May, when Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced construction plans for the project, he estimated that it would generate 2,000 construction jobs, 500 full-time permanent positions and millions in tax revenue. 

Gang and other female architects are paving the way for women in architecture in a similar way that Zaha Hadid did before her unexpected death earlier this year. The Iraqi-born architect amassed a continuous stream of awards for her designs, which included the London Aquatics Center built for the 2012 Olympics, the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, the Phaeno Science Center in Germany, the Bridge Pavilion in Spain and an opera house in Guangzhou, China.

Late last year, the board of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City also chose a Gang design for its $325 million expansion. The cave-like interior of the new Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation has been compared to the aesthetic of the Flintstones' town of Bedrock.

The rising influence of women in architecture is significant, as a recent study commissioned by the American Institute of Architects on diversity in the profession found that women strongly believe that gender equity is lacking in architecture. In contract, only half of men respondents said they believed that women were not sufficiently represented.