The High Speed Constructor from Skynet Research:

Real time urban planning is now a reality thanks to this fast moving fabrication assembly robot. At building sites multiple Constructors can be inputted with structural specifications and then sent into autonomous mode to quickly climb girders, I-beams, and rebar to tackle tedious assembly processes. With Skynet’s “TruSight”™ A.I. the quick-changing environment of the typical work site is no longer an obstacle. Multiple attachment devices connected to a self-replenishing internal high-speed air pressure assembly mean that the Constructor can quickly handle different jobs as they arise.

Of course, this is fiction, part of the hype machine surrounding the next in the Terminator series of films; the one where we get to see the machines gaining sentience and embarking on their pogrom on the humans led, this time by Christian Bale.

So here’s hoping that the film features scenes of automated rapid city building carried out by teams of wall climbing assembly bots. Cities that themselves turn sentient, coming to life later in the film as structural weapons against the humans.

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Have the authors of this viral marketing campaign ever seen the Terminator films? We all know that Skynet is an AI system, not a robotics company. Cyberdyne Systems was the company that developed the technology. I guess the brand recognition of ‘Skynet’ is that much stronger that they justified retconning the whole series.

Prior to this life, in a previous life, I worked at BVN. Much of the time spent there, I worked on this apartment building an Milsons Point overlooking the harbour. A couple of weeks ago, Andrew Cortese took me around the site on Friday and following are some photos of the visit.

The structure is set well back from the edge forming a series of concrete shelves that contain the building’s living spaces. The apartments are all arranged around a modular system allowing the investor/owners the opportunity to customise their apartments within the framework put in place by the structure.

The contractors’ penthouse portaloo:

Boutwell Draper Gallery has a show — Architecture 09 — on at the moment with work from, funnily enough, nine architecture practices. Super Colossal was asked to contribute, which we happily did.

There was a competition for a tower by LAVA, Peter Stutchbury and Thiery Lacoste got their sketchbooks on, Smart Design showed recent projects, Choi Ropiha pinned up recent projects along with the Tckts Booth at Times Square, Angelo Candalepas showed sketches and models and Dale Jones Evans showed his RMIT Masters project. Terroir pinned giant 1:20 models for a house to the backwall which made a great backdrop for the whole thing.

We put up the entire output of this website up on the wall; a stream of conscious scrapbook of our projects, stuff we like, and so on.

The show is on until 28th February and is the first of a regular yearly exhibition focussing on architecture, which is a very good thing for this city, I would say.

The exhibition was sponsored by James Draper Scale Models.