Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1098

As part of the National Building Museum’s Summer Block Party, Studio Gang  created an installation in the Great Hall called Hive . See above picture. Note the human for scale. 

Hive is an interactive series of spaces built exclusively out of lightweight and recyclable paper tubes – apparently 2,700 of them. The tubes have a polished silver exterior and bright magenta interior (love that part), and vary in size from several inches to over 10 feet. They are notched together to create a self-supporting structure.

The installation is beautiful in its own right – especially against the museum’s 19th century interior – but the idea is that each “sound chamber” within the Hive has different acoustic properties. The small chambers create a more intimate setting. And the main chamber is more grand and public. Think group yoga class or concert.

For more photos of Hive, click here . Below is also a time-lapse of the Hive’s construction. If you can’t see it, click here . (Don’t worry about turning on your sound.)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvJV7m0JOF0?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Image: Tim Schenck

A few days ago, Seth Godin published a terrific blog post called  the rationality paradox . It’s not very long (like most of his posts) and I like it a lot (particularly the bold part), and so I’m reblogging it in full here:

If you see yourself as an engineer, a scientist, or even a person of logic, then it’s entirely possible that you work to make rational decisions, decisions that lead to the outcomes you seek.

The paradox is that you might also believe that you do this all the time, and that others do it too.

But a rational analysis shows that this is far from true. Almost every choice we make is subconscious. We’re glitch-ridden, superstitious creatures of habit. We are swayed by social forces that are almost always greater than our attraction to symbolic logic would indicate. We prioritize the urgent and most of the decisions we make don’t even feel like decisions. They’re mostly habits combined with a deep desire to go along with the people we identify with.

Every time you assume that others will be swayed by your logical argument, you’ve most likely made a significant, irrational mistake.

Your actions and your symbols and your tribe dwarf the words you use to make your argument.

There are 26 cantons in Switzerland. One of the smaller cantons is Zug. It has a population of around 122,000 people and an area of 239 square kilometers. The capital of the canton is the town of Zug , which itself has a population of about 29,256 (as of December 2015) and an area of 21.61 square kilometers. 

To help put that into perspective, a single municipal ward in downtown Toronto ( Ward 28 - Toronto Centre-Rosedale ) had a population of over 66,000 people back in 2011.

But as small as Zug may be, it is known as one of the most business friendly jurisdictions in the world. It has some of the lowest corporate taxes and the local revenue service prides itself on calling each taxpayer a “client” as opposed to a “debtor.” 

As of 2010, the canton’s registry listed more than 29,000 companies , with more than 1,000 arriving and being started each year. There are about as many companies in the canton as there are people in the town of Zug.

It’s a classic example of jurisdictional arbitrage and it’s one that Zug seems determined to keep. In July 2016, the town of Zug began accepting digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, as payment for city fees. 

The impetus for doing so was to help advance Zug’s position as a global center for cryptocurrency innovation. There’s a very real government supported push to make Zug into “Crypto Valley.” And startups from around the world who are working in this space are starting to take notice . To me this feels like a natural extension given the canton’s existing strengths and reputation. (More reading here and here .)

I’ve been to Zug maybe twice and, at first blush, it could easily pass for your average sleepy-yet-affluent Swiss town. But then you think about all of the money that flows through this place and you quickly understand why that modest, but very tasty, breakfast sandwich just cost you all of the CHF’s in your wallet. 

Of course, if the entrepreneurs in Zug get their way, we won’t be carrying around wallets anymore. We’ll be paying with some sort of crypto varietal. And that would only strengthen this canton’s story: You don’t necessarily need to be big to be globally impactful – just put the right policies in the place. 

Oh, and have a very high quality of life and an immensely beautiful natural setting. Those things help as well.

Photo by Martin Sattler on Unsplash . The above photo is actually of Morschach in Switzerland, not of Zug. I couldn’t find a royalty free image of the latter. Please forgive me for the false advertising.