"Material Intelligence" is the theme of this year's Sydney Craft Week, taking place from 10 to 19 October, marking the ninth year of the Australian Design Centre (ADC)'s popular festival of craft and design.
When ADC director Lisa Cahill first had the idea in 2017, she envisaged a city-wide program embracing all forms of making. It now offers 240 events across Sydney and surrounding regions, from exhibitions and makers markets to hands-on workshops.
"Craft practitioners have a deep understanding of materials, and the skills needed to work with those materials, to source, combine and manipulate them," Cahill says. "Intelligent use of materials also needs to consider environmental sustainability including the lifecycle of material use. These are also important factors in contemporary building and architecture - Sydney Craft Week aims to spark connections between these different creative communities."
Isabelle Toland, co-founder of Sydney-based practice Aileen Sage Architects, will be taking part in a series of digital conversations released during Sydney Craft Week. For Isabelle, material intelligence is a key ethos of her design approach.
"It is a huge consideration in architecture," she says. "It's using materials in a very considered and intentional way, really thinking about where they've come from, their cultural significance, who's been involved in making and bringing that material into that particular form."
It's also an important element in improving environmental outcomes across the industry, she says. "A greater appreciation for materials is really key to a more sustainable way of looking at building, construction and design."
Material intelligence has been at the heart of two recent Aileen Sage Architects projects - the Redfern Community Facility completed in 2024, and the Waterloo Community Facility now under development, both on Gadigal Country.
One striking visual element of the Redfern building (designed in collaboration with First Nations designer Daniele Hromek and Heritage Specialist Architect Jean Rice) is the use of original bricks, previously concealed under render and paint.
"Once you realise how beautiful those bricks are, you're not going to throw them away," Toland says. "Especially the clinker bricks, which have those dense spots because of the firing process and material quality, with those imperfections and impurities in the clay bodies."
These bricks are now exposed around the building's new lift, along with salvaged dark and pale house bricks from other parts of Sydney. Clay was also salvaged from the lift excavation. "It was quite beautiful with white and red seams," Toland says. This "wild" clay is now stored at the community centre, with plans for a series of workshops to use it for making.
Toland has worked closely with different First Nations designers and Knowledge Holders on these projects, including how to incorporate culturally significant materials into the design and build. One source of inspiration for the Waterloo building, which includes a childcare centre, is the possum skin cloak. This important material object has been reclaimed by contemporary First Nations women including local master weaver and Gadigal, Dharawal, Yuin, Wiradjuri woman Nadeena Dixon.
Toland learnt a cloak could start with one skin for a child or baby when they were born, which then grew with them, inscribed with their own story. The cloaks also represent a protective layer for children.
"It's the weight and the density of the pelt, and the texture of the fur," she says. "It does give you that sense of protection and security, which I think is quite beautiful."
The architects integrated culturally significant materials into the building design, including a masonry screen that offers protection while filtering light and views. Toland also joined a weaving workshop led by Dixon, alongside women from the project and the Waterloo-Redfern community. Part of Dixon's Cultural Weaving Program, the workshop invited participants to wrap fish-shaped frames using a simple stitch. These were later added to a net Dixon had woven with her daughters, creating a shared artwork that celebrates cultural knowledge, community, and connection to Country.
"The weaving project was a way of connecting people through something tangible and immediate, marking the start of a long journey that we were all commencing together to create a new public place for community," says Toland.
The 2025 Sydney Craft Week Festival runs 10-19 October, with events, exhibitions and hands-on workshops across all forms of contemporary making including ceramics, weaving and leatherwork.
