Adapted Chukum Stucco

In February 1996, I was invited by Grupo Plan, a real estate company based in Mexico City, to lead intervention projects on six old henequen haciendas in Yucatán and Campeche. The aim was to restore these haciendas and convert them into luxury boutique hotels. This task presented an extraordinary challenge for two main reasons: firstly, there was no prior example of systematically restoring henequen haciendas, and secondly, the natural, material, and cultural conditions of Yucatán are unique and distinctly different from those in the rest of Mexico. 

As a Mexican from the central part of the country who had never been to Yucatán and an architect pursuing a postgraduate degree in building restoration and conservation with a keen interest in ancient construction materials and techniques, I was particularly fascinated by the unfamiliar materials and construction systems I encountered. Among these, I noticed remnants of an off-white stucco still visible in nearly all the water tanks and irrigation canals of the haciendas I had visited. This was the Chukum stucco.

The Pithecellobium albicans, known locally as Chukum or Chimay, is a tree endemic to Yucatán. Its bark is rich in tannin and is used for tanning hides. Additionally, there are the red wood Chakchucum and the white wood Sakchukum. In 1996, after consulting with researchers from the Centro de Investigaciones Científicas de Yucatán, we learned that both types of wood are suitable for construction purposes.

At the time, Don Ezequiel, a Maya elder overseeing Hacienda Temozón Sur, introduced us to the original technique and its components. This ancient Maya method involved mixing resin obtained from the bark with slaked lime and Sascab limestone sand to create a fine plaster that served as an organic sealant with waterproof properties. This technique was used to cover open-air water tanks and cisterns from pre-Hispanic times until the height of the old henequen haciendas, after which it fell into disuse.

Based on applied experimentation, we began adapting the original technique using industrialized materials, replacing Sascab with white cement and Pixoy with integral powder waterproofing. The goal was to create a finishing material that did not require additional paint or sealants and was waterproof while also being more cost-effective than the original technique. Most importantly, this new material aimed to retain a solid connection to the traditional construction culture of Yucatán, thereby enhancing the contemporary architecture of this Mexican region.

The adapted Chukum stucco was successfully applied for the first time in the swimming pool coating at Hacienda Temozón Sur during its restoration and conversion into a luxury hotel in 1996. Following this initial success, we have consistently used this technique in all our heritage architecture projects and new contemporary architecture in Yucatán, with increasingly complex applications.

Since that same year working with Grupo Plan and later in our own studio, we have contributed to training local labor and promoting this finishing material as a distinctive feature of contemporary architecture in the Yucatán Peninsula. As a result, the use of the adapted Chukum stucco gained local popularity among architects and construction professionals. By 2010, we identified the first local manufacturer who began marketing the adapted Chukum stucco, and, more recently, the powdered ready mix. Today, at least three construction companies produce and commercialize this material.

In the last ten years, the adapted Chukum stucco has become a distinctive feature of contemporary Yucatecan architecture and a reference point in early 21st-century Mexican architecture. My vision as an architect 28 years ago, when we worked on reviving and recreating the original Chukum stucco technique, was to champion the local over the global. This approach was a logical response to the need for economic efficiency in a region with scarce material resources and aimed to reaffirm a sense of belonging in modern architecture by preserving local memory and ancestral knowledge.

Today, I see this stance as a clear necessity. Contemporary architecture must recognize and express the local as an integral part of its universal identity.

Main image: Casa Sisal, Adapted Chukum stucco applied on floors, walls, and ceilings, Yucatán, Mexico, 2007, reyes ríos + larraín arquitectos. Photo © Pim Schalkwijk