Shipping-Container Designs Over 400+sq ft.

I have a  few concept designs that don't fit into the tiny home category, or earthship category, and it seems this might be the spot for the ones that are bigger than 400 sq ft?  I guess living areas over 400 sq ft are not considered tiny homes but I wanted to share some of the larger concept designs i've made.  I want to eventually team up with an architect and an engineer to make plans available for everyone, but for now I'm doing design concepts and R&D.  later I might make a go-fund-me to raise funds to pay the architect and engineer, and if anyone is wiling to help that would be appreciated greatly.

I'm also seeking simple input, ideas, and thoughts from the community.  This particular design concept is made from two 40' containers, but I have more designs and more coming.  Anyway here is on of my larger designs at 640 sq ft



thanks

here is a more recent concept model I've recently done.  I really like this one personally although I still crave the garage...

Nice, but what use will an architect be?
The Engineer can do the comps for the wall cut out reinforcement.

i was hoping to assemble a couple of qualified people to make some of my concepts into plans, or blueprints.  my brother has a friend who is an engineer.  perhaps i am the architect ;) well that is good to know.  

i have done a few more recent designs since the last time i shared here.  
here is one of my favorites.



i have many hours invested into all of my concept designs, i hope to one day soon bring some of them to life :)

more recently ive designed a few barns and work-shops utilizing container conceptual design

this is one of my larger "gap" designs which utilizes the empty space "gap" between two or more containers

As a Civil Engineer for 45 years, I always applaud anybody that tries a new idea etc.

I am concerned people may just lift your designs and copy them, with no return for you.

I have found value adding is effective, so there is a reason to actually pay cash etc for something helps a lot.
In this case, creating a material list of all the items needed, including length, section sizing, number off, wall thickness, material type, would be very useful.
There is a bit of work to do that, and if you standardise things as much as you can, IE section dimensions, the punters will be happy to pay.
The difference in cost between precise sizing of each piece of steel and standardising them is not a lot compared with cutting multiple bits with a range of sizes.
The time saved will be enormous.
The purchaser can easily get a quote for the steel cut to size, from the material list or an idea of the total length so they can purchase and cut themselves.

If you number each piece as well, and refer to that number on the drawings that will save heaps of time for them and hopefully some income for yourself.

John C Daley wrote: As a Civil Engineer for 45 years, I always applaud anybody that tries a new idea etc.

I am concerned people may just lift your designs and copy them, with no return for you.

I have found value adding is effective, so there is a reason to actually pay cash etc for something helps a lot.
In this case, creating a material list of all the items needed, including length, section sizing, number off, wall thickness, material type, would be very useful.
There is a bit of work to do that, and if you standardise things as much as you can, IE section dimensions, the punters will be happy to pay.
The difference in cost between precise sizing of each piece of steel and standardising them is not a lot compared with cutting multiple bits with a range of sizes.
The time saved will be enormous.
The purchaser can easily get a quote for the steel cut to size, from the material list or an idea of the total length so they can purchase and cut themselves.

If you number each piece as well, and refer to that number on the drawings that will save heaps of time for them and hopefully some income for yourself.

John, unfortunately i have had my ideas stolen more times than i can count.  i knew that was a risk when i posted my designs publicly.  when i posted my barrel top dutch oven attachment, it was less than 3 weeks and i saw another member trying to sell my idea as an attachment for his stoves.  i didn't do anything about it and he's probably made money off my old idea.  i have alot of great ideas but i don't have the time and resources to make them all happen.  even my actual youtube build projects are mostly completed by one-man, just me.  most of my videos are actual builds but my shipping container buildings playlist is purely conceptual.  i dont like talking about things unless i'm actually going to do it, and i wouldn't waste my ideas and time if i didn't see one in my future.  of all my 350 or so videos, only the 8 container videos are simply concept designs currently.  this gives me practice and ideas of how i will arrange my first container build, whenever i'm finally ready to build one.  

i think the numbering and measuring and final say should be up to the engineer who helps me make this a reality someday.  i'd like to think or hope that i'd come up with the ideas and concepts and the engineer would do the drawings and OK the ideas.  i stay pretty busy with work and youtube and all the build projects i do on youtube, plus i'm completing my education, so my "spare time" is almost non-existent.  like i said i have tons of ideas, many of which don't see the light of day, but i don't have the time and resources to make all of them happen unfortunately.  numbering and measuring parts or supports or footings would definately best be left to someone more qualified than i.  that's the primary reason why i'd like to partner with an engineer when i'm ready for my own drawings.  if i found someone willing to make the drawings for a fee or for a partnership i would likely go for it in an effort to continue and graduate, while eventually build one for myself.  at first i wanted to make the plans free but i think it would be easier to offer an incentive such as a percentage of the blueprint sales or just pay someone to make the blueprints for me.   i'm clearly not in a hurry but i love the idea and i'm getting better and better with the layouts and interior / exterior design, and i plan to have one built within the next 5 years  possibly one of the workshop concepts.  

thanks for your input John.  i'm open to ideas and critique, and im not really afraid of more work as each design has cost several hours.  there is an option to turn on scale display in my design program.  ever design is done to scale to accurately represent the size of the containers and everything therein.  on the barn workshop you can see the roof dimensions are automatically generated and displayed by the design software.  i just make a roof to fit the accurately scaled containers concept and the programs generates the dimensions accordingly.  the height and width and lengths are all displayed when the option is selected.  i frequently scale the containers to 40ft long, 8ft wide & 9.5ft tall, the proportionate accurate scale of an average high-cube sea can container.  

I guess while you are playing with the software,you are learning how to use it.

John, I don’t want to pull this thread off track — if you think this post does that, tell me and I’ll remove it.

Your concepts are very interesting to me, but I can't offer an architect’s or engineer’s perspective on your ideas. Plus, I've never worked with Shipping containers myself.

You've got ideas not only for residential shelter, but also for shops.  I wanted to share this Youtube vid about a pretty amazing shipping-container workshop set up for working with mixed materials. So this guy also has that two-concept (and shows numerous clever features).  To me, it appears his containers are less than 40-feet long.

yes he is utilizing the gap in-between two (20ft) containers, with a roof over the gap.  this is very similar to several of my conceptual designs.  utilizing the gap is genius in my opinion, it requires multiple containers but opens up many possibilites including rooms that are lerger than 8 ft wide.  i utilize gaps with multiple containers in my concept designs because i design workshop / garage bays and these bays require more than 8ft wide.  containers are only 8ft wide but a comfortable area to work on a vehicle and have room to open the doors, and for tools, a minimum of 12ft is adequate for working around vehicles.  i also utilize the gap concept in several of my residential concepts as well.  i can make bigger rooms and more sq ft with 2 containers and a gap, than i can with 3 containers conjoined.  which might be cheaper because you only require 2 containers instead of 3 or 4 to make more living space.   that man in the video is utilizing two 20 ft containers but still a great idea.   personally i put my roof at the outer edge of the containers rather than the inner, this requires larger trusses but opens up the possibility of having lofts ontop of the containers, as seen in my 40x40 barn workshop video above.  

Totally agree about building the roof to the outer edge. A lot of the commercial designs do it the other way... but I assume they are thinking of shorter term use. I want my seacans to last as long as I hope to at a minimum, this means a roof. Plus, I feel like having a few feet of snow on top of the can/roof interface is not optimal.

I think I will end up using trusses set up on a wall on the inner edge, though. Then I can run a rafter from the inner to outer edge, minimizing the span of the truss to keep the cost down while still achieving a good width and getting access to the container tops for storage lofts.

So far the magic number on trusses in my area seems to be 40ft; above this the price increase for additional length is disproportionate.

I'm wanting enough room to work on heavy equipment, so if I subtracted 2 cans from that span I'd have only 23ish ft, which would only allow for one generous bay. Hanging on to basically the whole 40 will make 2 bays workable.

I intend to use 45' cans, mostly because I have one; it was the same price as the 40s on a per foot basis. Hopefully another is not excessively hard to find.

I'm still torn about spending more to extend the roof past the door end of the seacans, to have access while keeping everything dry, without chopping in side doors.