We made a shop from a couple old box truck boxes when I worked for an odd bird guy some years back.
They were longer than 20' I believe, lots of sizes available.
We set them up on blocks, one about a foot or so higher than the other and about 20' apart, then later poured concrete (from broken discounted home depot bags) in between them.
Then later we framed in between and covered that with used metal roofing, with the difference in height of the boxes it drained well enough.
The framing was pieced together scrap with sheet metal scrap sandwiched in between, put together with screws he dug out of a dumpster somewhere.
The back wall was made of old insulated garage doors he picked up from behind a garage door company.
Front was a home made set of swinging doors from scrap, and the rest was framed in from scrap and covered with more of the garage door panels.
It actually looked ok, good even after we painted the bodies white to match the panels.
One of the van bodies we sheet rocked and put in an ac unit and made a nice office/break room with a fridge, microwave, and stove - all um, reclaimed.
The other body we used for tool storage and work area for more delicate electrical stuff, and the concreted area in between was a decent sized shop. One of the cross beams we made strong enough you could pull an engine from it.
Later on, after I quit working for him, he continued on and built quite an odd assortment of areas. Once had floor entirely of scrap wood just laid on the ground and screwed together and it was very sturdy.
For the most part all the wall he added were the old garage panels, and even some of the roofs, turns out the right kind of garage door panels makes a decent metal roof.
Framing was all over the place, stick built scrap wood (he got it as scrap, it was actually full length and for the most part matching dimension) Welded metal frames, another van body, a large shed/small garage he got somewhere and moved.
Even a bathroom with a shower made from a pair of those large wooden moving crates/boxes.
Initially we built the first structure while we both had regular jobs, he then quit his job and started scrapping/junk collecting full time. I worked for him full time for awhile in between mechanic shops and the occasional side job even when I had another job. His wife eventually quit her job and worked with him full time as well.
I went over to see him now and again for years, once for amusement we measured up everything under roof and come up a little over 8,000 sq ft. Plus quite a lot more open area.
It was amazing the stuff he managed to acquire for nothing. Electric motors, generators, gear reduction units, pneumatic systems and parts, racks and racks of bolts/screws/nuts, tools, new windows and glass doors, furniture, air conditioners, appliances, metal tables, all kinds of stainless tables, odd machines like an industrial printing press that was the size of a truck (I got several dial indicators, Starrett and various pressure gauges from that. Steel panels, rods, all-thread, bar stock, round stock, new car parts, drill presses, presses, metal cabinets, bins, shelving, new car parts, tool boxes, trailers, cars, trucks, an air boat, all kind of general building materials, a big metal lathe, a mill, several welders,... I could go on like this for a long time.
Pretty much if you didn't know where to get something, he had it, possibly several. If you needed something expensive but didn't want to pay much for it, he might have one.
This is besides junking enough stuff everyday to make an ok living, support themselves and a child, and almost always employ at least one person, and sometimes 3.
The vast majority of all of this was gotten free and legally, some of the stuff was taken in trade - but traded for something he got free most likely. Some of it he did purchase, but I will guarantee he didn't pay a lot for whatever it was.
The initial tools he did buy, or already own. Lots of cordless stuff, basic hand tools. Torch - but I think he traded for that setup. Fair amount of stuff from harbor freight of course.
But I wandered a little off point.
The land where we did this, or mostly he did, though I put a lot of time in it, was tucked away where you couldn't see it from any roads, and was all blocked in.
Only one access and you had to go through a gate, down a long driveway, through another gate that was usually open, between a couple houses, and then through our gate before you could even really see there was anything there.
Pretty unusual location given it is basically in the middle of a city - about a block from a busy 4 lane highway even. East Tampa/Clair mel area has a few odd places like this.
We rented the spot from the people who owned the houses and lived in them. We also pulled power and water from them and paid our share. Wiring and fuse panel were free, and we had power everywhere under roof and water in 3 spots, and very seldom tripped a breaker, twice in all the time I spent there.
Fairly sure a code enforcement officer would have one good look and pass out though.
Which brings us to my actual comment - lol.
Shipping containers aren't allowed by code within city limits in pretty much any county, just to sit there, much less as a structure. Quite disappointing really.
Even the rental moving containers, like a packrat or pods are only supposed to sit for a week, though I doubt you would catch any hassle over that.
I just bought a small house with a good sized piece of land - about a half acre - but no shop.
There is a 20x20 carport, and 10 x 18 shed with a 12 x 20 lean to-overhang. All put up within the last 4 years or less, and all listed on the property description/tax website.
Which tells me somebody is paying attention.
I'm the kind of guy who really needs a shop, the shed and overhang are already full, as is the carport and I still have to park my truck outside (Which I would anyway, but still....) Plus I had to take more tools to work than I like to have there.
So in contemplating this I remembered my days with Bill and his junk, and I started looking on Craigslist.
I found some van bodies pretty reasonably, but I also spotted the shipping containers, and there are a lot of them around Tampa for sale. I can get a 20' for $1200 or less and 40' for a $100 or $200 more. Plus a moving fee, but that's not terrible, like $200-250 each, or if it comes to it I know some truck drivers and could maybe have them do it more reasonably.
Awesome, I could buy 3 40' containers and have a 40x56 or so shop for $4000 ish, or maybe use a 20' and 2 40', or a 40' and 2 20' or whatever, several options there. Maybe use some combination of those and the garage door panels for limitless options. Paint the containers white to match the doors and it would look like it was an actual metal building.
It would give me a lot of storage instantly, and then over time I could pour the concrete, roof it, frame out some actual garage doors, wire and plumb it as time and money allowed.
I would have a nice big shop at a fraction of the cost of building one even close to its size, and it would be super heavy duty, and I could get what I need now and do it in steps.
Sadly though, at some point zoning and code occurred to me, but better now than later I guess.
I looked it up and learned you can't have them sitting on your property here - and figured out they are actually paying attention.
I looked up a couple of other cities/states where I have lived and it said basically the same thing. Talked to some people I know around the country and those that knew anything about it said pretty much the same thing.
So I imagine its pretty much the same thing everywhere within city limits anyway.
I think you can still do pretty much what you want out in the country, for now anyway.
I understand the need for zoning/structure laws, but from what I can see they were slapped together in vague ways by somebody in a hurry and without much practical knowledge or experience.
I can't build a super heavy duty nice looking steel and concrete shop, yet my 60 year old wood frame house is supported by a couple dozen concrete blocks standing on end. Fairly common Florida construction even.
Probably before code implementation, but with thousands, hundreds of thousands, and possibly in the millions range of houses built like this and still sound, it obviously works.
Equally obviously heavy gauge metal would work better. I don't see how the fact it happened to be a shipping container matters.
I could see requiring them to be in decent shape, and appropriately painted, otherwise they could look awful and/or be rusty to the point of being unsafe - those would be understandable requirements.
But if you take a shipping container and plop it in your yard, paint it white, slap a metal roof on it, no one is going to know it was a shipping container unless they saw it go in.
Possibly if you leave the nice heavy duty door they might pick up on that I suppose.
But then again I could put a shipping container door on my regular steel building and that would be fine legally.
