undulating sculptures at SFER IK basin echo interspecies co-creation

roth architecture and Cristina Ochoa team up for sfer ik basin

AZULIK‘s SFER IK Basin is gradually expanding in the heart of Tulum at Aldea Zama. This new open-air museum, designed jointly with Roth Architecture, explores interspecies co-creation as a homage to ancestral wisdom, art, and nature. White structures seemingly emerge from the ground, weaving, bending, and curving amid the wild landscape of Mexico, almost like a web ‘reflecting the constant flow of elements in nature,’ share the architects. Blooming as part of the Basin is the En-chanted Garden, a living work of art created by artist Cristina Ochoa in collaboration with Roth Architecture.

all images courtesy Roth Architecture

En-chanted Garden: a bio sanctuary with ancestral knowledge

Commissioned by SFER IK Museion (see more here), the En-chanted Garden serves as an ecological sanctuary, biodiversity reserve, vegetable pharmacy, school, and knowledge exchange space. Cristina Ochoa (more here) and the team at Roth Architecture envisioned the design’s undulating sculptures to be a portal of time and ancestral memory, a garden where visitors can learn from the cosmogony of native peoples to create a conscious future in harmony with nature. The garden is home to diverse species (plants, fungi, lichens, animals, pollinators, insects, bats, reptiles, birds) and transdisciplinary communities (Mayan spiritual leaders, x-meens and herbalist doctors) who give access to their ancestors’ pharmaceutical, mystical, and cultural knowledge. Multidisciplinary groups of artists, scientists, and researchers also contribute to this space, fostering communication with the sacred and natural world.

En-chanted Garden at SFER IK Basin

The En-chanted Garden at the SFER IK Basin features a herbal Codex with information cards about 52 catalogued plants. These cards, distributed throughout, provide medicinal and cultural information from traditional doctors and Maya priests: Don Valerio Canché, Rodolfo Puch, and Leydi Dorantes Cob. The cards are illustrated with watercolor paintings by Cristina Ochoa, with QR codes allowing visitors to hear the masters discuss their relationship with each plant. Visitors can further their knowledge by attending workshops and participating in activities and ceremonies as part of the Art and Sacred Ecology program, offering practical and theoretical workshops every Saturday from 11 am to 2 pm in the garden’s heart. The workshops are recorded for a high-quality audiovisual series, including 30-minute videos and shorter formats for cultural dissemination.

undulating sculptures echo interspecies co-creation