WEJETSET GIVES.

One of our favorite aspects of wejetset is our Gives Campaign. Each season we donate a portion of our profits to an important social cause. This season we chose Literacy. Over the past decade, Mt. Carmel YET Center has diligently worked to deliver top notch after school programming to elementary students in West Philadelphia. Lead by Ms. Viola Winston and Mr. Vincent Coles, their free program provides literacy support to young students in a very challenged area of the city. It’s really exciting work.

I had the personal honor of working with Mt. Carmel YET Center for years and saw their commitment to the community first hand. So it’s with great pleasure that we made a financial contribution to their program. Our donation will be used to expand their reading libraries and support teaching staff. Congratulations Mt. Carmel, you’re an inspiration to us all.

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PLACES TO EAT.

Good Mexican food is hard to find in NYC, that’s why eating at Tres Hermanos is an event worth celebrating. I am originally from Los Angeles, and growing up Mexican food was not only comfort food but a daily part of life. Sure there are a lot of positives to living in the incredible New York City, but one major void in my life is great Mexican food.

Almost two years ago when I first was looking for apartments, I found myself straddling the border between Williamsburg and Queens with no luck except for stumbling upon a tortilla factory called Tres Hermanos. Now at this point in time, Tres Hermanos was still in fact an active tortilla factory that had a small door on the left hand side, to a couple of white folding tables in the middle of the floor. Next to them were two Mexican women, a makeshift stove and some stacks of paper plates. From the outside, we knew that whatever they were serving must be good. So without hesitation we sat ourselves down, ordered 2 chicken tacos in broken Spanish and barely stopped to breathe before we were done. For the duration of those tacos I felt like I was back in Los Angeles eating off a taco truck in East LA. Click Read More for additional information and photos. Written by Brittany Kleinman

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PRINTED MATTER EXHIBIT.

Last Friday’s trip to NYC kicked off a fantastic weekend. The unseasonably warm evening played host to a new exhibit at Printed Matter, one of the city’s best bookstores. Megawords Magazine partnered with the well known shop for a show entitled, Hi, We Made A Magazine for You. Good friends and great atmosphere blended seamlessly with the Magazine’s authentically inspiring ephemera which was layered on walls, stacked in piles and captured in glass displays. We’re long time fans of the publication and highly recommend visiting the exhibit if you’re in NYC.

As Megawords describes: “Our mission is simple: to document our surroundings, experience, to have a voice free from the noise of commercialization and competing novelties, and to create an open and active dialogue between Megawords and the community at large. We have self-published twelve free issues, broadcast a weekly internet radio show, and organized multiple events and performances under the banner of Megawords. With time came positive feedback from a diverse audience and a strong realization that this project had a profound impact.” Click Read More for additional information, photos and video.

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VINTAGE SHOPPING.

Artist and designer Ebony Bizys captured our attention with her post about Shimokitazawa a suburb in Japan and must-visit destination for lovers of vintage shopping, cozy cafes and general cuteness. She describes it as “packed with teeny tiny six-seater bars, adorable cafes, loads of cheap and cheerful restaurants, vintage and retro clothing stores, live music venues, secondhand record stores, homewares and vintage stores…Come here if you fancy an afternoon wondering around people spotting, stay until sundown, have a G+T at Mois cafe, and try some delicious okonomiyaki.”

In addition to Mois, a relaxing cafe set in an old two story home, Bizys highlights several shops and thrift stores in the suburb. One is Sou, a crafty clothing and homewares store that makes a custom calendar just for customers. Commune is another shop, with a tiny gallery, that sells zines, art and other handmade items. Click Read More for additional information and photos.

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ARCHITECTURE.

At the 2006 Venice Biennale, MAD Architects envisioned the future of Beijing with three proposals. One of their visions was the “Future of Hutongs,” a plan for metallic bubble structures that would pop up in hutongs, or narrow alleys, in the city’s oldest neighborhoods. Now, the first of these bubbles has made its debut in a modest, residential courtyard.

Rapid development in Beijing in recent years has been hard for the city to keep up with, and standards of living in older neighborhoods have suffered. MAD’s hutong bubbles address these conditions as small-scale, adaptable interventions that can grow with the fabric of the city and provide new, positive opportunities in struggling areas. Click Read More for additional information and photos.

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INTERNATIONAL AUTO.

This Thursday kicks off the International Auto Show in Geneva. There’s plenty of excitement surrounding the event. We’re looking forward to seeing new hybrids, exotic super cars and daring four door hatchbacks. Sure we’ve all seen the extra glossy cgi’d concepts, but it’ll be great to see the actual vehicles. One of our favorite bloggers from the Honeyee Mag line-up, Mai Ikuzawa, provides an early glimpse of the show. Click Read More for additional photos and information.

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ARCHITECTURE.

Fans of Vitra’s Home Collection will appreciate their new showroom in Weil Am Rhein, Germany. Designed by Jacques Herzon and Pierre de Meuron, the stacked structure beams eccentricity and quirky modernism.

Design Boom got a first look and discusses the concept: “The concept of the ‘Vitrahaus’ connects two themes which are occurring in the architectural practice of Herzog & De Meuron: the theme of the archetypal house and that of stacked volumes. the five-story structure is comprised of 12 ‘houses’ – five houses are set at the base in which seven other houses are stacked upon one another. Each of the structural volumes appear as if they have been shaped by an extrusion press and are cantilevered up to 15 metres in some places. The floor slabs intersect the underlying gables, resulting in a three-dimensional assemblage or ‘pile of houses’.” Click Read More for additional information and photos.

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