Architecture and Material Intelligence with Isabelle Toland

Isabelle Toland is co-director and co-founder of Aileen Sage Architects, a collaborative design studio established in Sydney in 2013 with Amelia Holliday. Their innovative practice aims to integrate architecture and cultural narratives in the public and private realm, working on a broad range of projects including community facilities, commercial and residential, and public and cultural spaces.

Isabelle reflects here on the concept of ‘Material Intelligence’, the theme of Sydney Craft Week for 2025.

What does the term Material Intelligence mean to you?

It's using materials in a very considered and intentional way, really thinking about where they've come from and their cultural significance, as well as who has been involved in making and transforming that material into this particular form. It's a huge issue in architecture. We talk about the construction industry generating an enormous amount of waste - to stop doing that we need to increase our material intelligence, understanding where materials are coming from and the impact of extracting them. It’s also about recognising the people involved, how they craft these materials that end up in the built environment, or as design objects. This is really key to material intelligence and a more sustainable way of looking at building, construction and design.

Can you give a couple of recent examples of material intelligence in your work, how you developed it and why it was important?

At the Redfern Community Facility we worked to integrate the building’s original clinker bricks into the design. Once you realise how beautiful those bricks are, you're not going to throw them away or cover them up. So we retained a lot of them where we inserted a new lift and created a new entry area. The building had previously been rendered and painted over - we couldn't clean that off everything but the areas where we did new work is where we revealed the bricks as an important design and cultural element.

Material intelligence is also knowing about the origin of materials and their history. We have been working with Gadigal artist Nadeena Dixon on a project in Waterloo. Nadeena’s family has long-term connections to the Sydney area. We talked about the Pyrmont sandstone used in many old buildings across Sydney, including at the base of the Redfern building, and how her great-grandfather had transported that stone across Sydney – so she felt a strong connection to that material. Also the bricks, recognising they came from Country too, so they have a particular significance and importance that we should value and treat with great respect. That's what I love about these conversations, especially with First Nations collaborators, gaining this incredible understanding and constant awareness of the interconnectedness of everything.

Does this kind of thinking also have an impact in your non-working life?

Yes, it’s about considering those connections whatever we do. We have become so detached from the process of extracting materials and turning them into other things that we've lost the understanding and therefore the value of them. The more we can reconnect with these materials and where they came from, the more meaning they have and the less likely we are to dispose of them in our personal and professional life.

For the Redfern project for example, we did an inventory of everything in the building we could retain, like bathroom light fittings and joinery units that were still in good condition and could easily be reused if just a bit more care was taken. City of Sydney also has depots where they store excess materials from various public sites, so we sourced as much as we could there too.

Is there anything in the Sydney Craft Week program that particularly interests or resonates with you?

The Zero Waste Glazes Workshop particularly piques my interest. Ceramic glazes, pigments and working with clay generally seems like some kind of alchemy to me. Especially when things discarded or treated as invaluable are found and transformed into wondrous beauty, just by looking at things a little bit differently.

Read more about Isabelle's practice and ideas around Material Intelligence here.