This study investigates the idea of machines as the foundation of learning about materials and technological systems in the first-year design studio. The study aims to utilise the idea of machines as a way of understanding different systems of relations that connect various kinds of environmental interactions. In particular, exploration of machines refers to learning the systems of relations. It creates a crucial foundation for integrating sustainability into architectural education, enabling students to explore systems of relations, connectivity, and negotiations in manoeuvring between materials and technology. This study is informed by the learning process of Basic Design Studio 2, a first-year studio conducted at the Department of Architecture, Universitas Indonesia. The data is collected from students' design processes of everyday machines, how the students proposed a creative interconnected system, and then reflected on such propositions. Learning and creating a form of machine enhances students' hands-on skills in exploring different materials with their possibilities and limitations. The learning process builds students' logic of basic construction techniques, as well as introducing the practice of material reuse, which is necessary in the design studio. This study also found that understanding an interconnected machine is more than just combining existing systems; it involves seeing it as an assemblage, which consists of interconnected elements, as elements that capture the actions and reactions, and as a continuous performance. Such roles of machines can establish the students' understanding of cause-and-effect relations as part of systematic and creative forms of thinking. Learning from the machines, therefore, expands the discussion on sustainability in architectural education, beyond simply solving isolated environmental problems, by reading the hidden interrelations between systems of the built environment and beyond. © 2026 Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.