AbstractAttention is focused on low‐damping‐rubber base‐isolators. Instead of thinking in terms of intelligent materials, this paper pursues the definition of conditions of behaviour which result intelligent in view of a coupling with an active control device (hybrid control). In particular, situations which show a chaotic behaviour of the dynamic response to external excitations are promising in terms of control efficiency. The regions of chaotic behaviour are identified by evaluation of the corresponding Lyapunov expo