In our time of globalised capitalism, office towers are often designed as glittering testaments to design, innovation and the triumph of man. The same however cannot be said of Torre de David, an office tower conceived in the 1990s now better known as the world’s tallest vertical slum. The tower provides an intriguing example of how extremely poor people have had enough of oppression and are now making use of one of the “failures of capitalism” (Vocativ, 2013). Indeed, in a city where “70% of the Caracas residents live in slums” (Demilked, 2014), Torre de David offers these people a chance to live in their own designer affordable housing.
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