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A brief history

Layer Zero first opened in south Minneapolis in 2021 led by a scrappy handful of hackers with the goal of being a cozy place for Twin City electronics nerds to hang out at. Over the following 5 years we had built up a community hub and established local connections, but the building we were stationed in never really felt “ready” to publish the address or open it to the general public at any point.

Then, in spring of 2026 as Metro Surge was devastating our neighbors, the owner of the building forced us out for repairs he refused to let us help with. We hastily moved everything we had into storage or members’ residences and halted regular gatherings which was a huge disadvantage to our ability to organize and to our collective mental health. The dream of Layer Zero, however, still lives on, and after searching for months to find our new home, we think we’ve found it.

We’re close to obtaining a lease and are incredibly excited to move forward, but we need your help. The deposit alone is more than we have and getting the space to be livable will take even more time and money. We do need sustaining memberships to be able to survive long-term but any amount you can give will make a difference.

Costs we need to cover

Immediate

Fees

• Security deposit
• Inspections
• Continue paying for the storage unit until we’ve cleared it out

Buildout

• Accessibility compliance
• Kitchenette
• Potential interior wall rearrangement
• Sound treatment
• Furniture upgrades and additions
• Other building upgrades

Ongoing

• Utilities payments
• Year-over-year rent increase
• HVAC maintenance

Layer zero is for…

Cooperative community

Take up space, make friends, tell your life story. We take care of each other, the building (LZ), and the organization (Cyberia). We want to be a third space supported by regular people like you.

Exchanging knowledge

Discuss your special interests with like-minded individuals who can teach you things and learn from you too. We plan to host regular workshops on various technology-related topics once we’ve settled!

Budding activists

We have printers and both digital and physical media available. We hold space to organize, educate, and spark interest in the humanities and topics of justice.

Perks of a sustaining membership

Your own key

A third space you can enter and exit any time you please. Do some studying, watch a movie, bring a friend or three! It’s up to you.

Community rackspace

Your scrappy little home server can live here with an unchanging public IP address. You can also add it to our Tailscale network or reverse proxy with consensus if you want.

We'll even have a backup server on premises that you can replicate your important data onto.

Web service accounts

Post and approve events on our calendar! Edit and store your documents on our Nextcloud, a community-developed suite of software, instead of Google Drive! Get a Flohmarkt account (), and access anything else specific to LZ that we host in the future.

Amateur radio

We'll have an antenna on the roof and with a radio operator’s license you can use our equipment any time you please.

End notes

Again, the link to donate is opencollective.com/layerzero. You can get in touch with us via Matrix if you'd like to assist with the search!

In the interest of transparency we will keep this page updated as details change. Whichever building we settle on, we hold a vast amount of hope for our collective future.

Help us close the old world and open the next!