all images © Design With Company (Dw/Co)

Design With Company (Dw/Co) is the Chicago-based architectural collaborative of Stewart Hicks and Allison Newmeyer. Dw/Co seeks to transform the world through textual and visual narratives, speculative urban scenarios, installations, and small-scale interactive constructions. Farmland World Narrative is one of the featured works of Dw/Co that was awarded a Special Mention for Rural Typology in the d3 Unbuilt Visions Competition! and we bring it to your attention once more and this conceptual utopia shows how humans, technology and animals produce a fruitful combination with creative scenarios. Design With Company (Dw/Co) is also among the participants of 2015 Chicago Architecture Biennial.

Farming is a practice that by it’s own nature unites humans, technology and animals in productive combinations. Hybrids and various mutant bio-mechanical mixtures—Caterpillar combines, John Deere tractors, etc.—began transforming the rural landscape of America beginning in the early 20th century by subjugating the pastoral ideal to the ingenuity of human invention. From utilitarian machinery, to show piece display, both farm animals and machines express a range of complex personalities. Which poses the question: can these overlaps and mutable identities expand to contend with the various crises the farm industry is facing today?

Farmland World is a chain of agro-tourist resorts sprinkled across the American Midwestern countryside. Part theme park and part working farm, guests arrive to the resort via train and stay as part of 1-day, 3-day or 5-day experience packages. Capitalizing on both recent investments in high-speed rail infrastructure and the plentiful subsidies for farming, the network of resorts combines crowd-sourced farm labor with eco-tainment.

Guests perform daily chores as self-imposed distractions from the toil of their daily lives. Among the countless activities offered, guests can choose to ride the Animal Farmatures, the dual natured farm implements that complete traditional farm tasks while performing grand rural-techno spectacles. When its time to leave for home, guests climb back into the train, weary and satisfied from their labors as they marvel at the passing landscape they helped transform.

Project Facts