It is not an entrance to the underground bunker of some super-villain, or a teleporter to another dimension, but merely a humble thunderbox.
I think it would be accurate to say that it is over-engineered.
Look again at the photo above; the stainless steel door requires a total of five 8-inch-wide hinges to support its massive weight. Does it contain bullet-proof armour intended to withstand a siege?
Rather than a simple vacant/engaged flag on the door latch, there are three flashing LED indicators which signal the status of the toilet to everyone in the vicinity. At night, they are visible from the opposite side of the park.
The interior, which is the size of a small bedroom, is clad from floor to ceiling with stainless steel.
With the exception of the toilet seat, everything in it is stainless, including even the full-length mirror. It must have cost a fortune; the amount of stainless steel in the place would be enough to outfit three kitchens; with enough left over for a small meth lab.
On entering, an American voice announces that you are to press the button to lock the door and warns you that you may stay only a maximum of ten minutes. I'm not sure what happens after this period; maybe an ejector seat activates.
On pressing the door lock button, elevator music is then played at you.
On leaving, the voice - in a carefully calibrated neutral tone - thanks you for using the facility. I am sure that I've heard that very same voice, and possibly also those same words, in some dystopian science fiction film. "Thank you for visiting Soylent Corporation", or something like that.
[edit July 2017: After some research I think the quote I'm thinking of is "Welcome to Delos" and comes from the 1973 film Westworld, which I haven't actually seen. I came across it as a sample in a long forgotten song, probably by a short-lived 1980s Adelaide band. It is immediately followed by another sample in which a terrified voice exclaims "that's not supposed to happen!" ]
Why?
Why is it necessary to spend money on such a thing?
Everyone is crying poor these days, and the local council doesn't seem to have enough money to police developers who are breaking their regulations left and right. There is no money to put up nest boxes or wildlife bridges to cope with animals displaced by the aforesaid rapacious developers. Clearly the koalas and sugar gliders count for nothing in comparison to the glory of constructing a super-toilet.
I get that it looks cool and it's probably fairly vandal proof (at least until someone calculates the scrap value of all that stainless steel and gets at it with a crow-bar), but is it needed? Is it worth it?
Given that you could probably afford to completely replace a standard toilet a dozen times over for the cost of this thing, I don't see how it would ever pay for itself in terms of resistance to vandalism. I don't see how it provides any special security for the user either; sure you're invulnerable to anything short of heavy artillery when ensconced within this fortified enclosure, but as soon as you leave, the bad guys can grab you, then force you back inside where the massive construction will stifle your screams.
All in all, it's a piece of misapplied technology - the wrong solution to the wrong problem.
I have seen similar facilities in Rockingham, Western Australia. These facilities auto-lock at 2100 and unlock again at 0600. One has to wonder at why they need to be locked at night... given that they are fully automatic. I have encountered a number of people looking for toilet facilities in the late hours of the evening, early hours of the morning wondering why they were locked. Unfortunately I had no answers and suggested they contact the council for answers.
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