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Cube Depot Shipping Container Building

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large structure with steel arch roof mounted on several stacked gray shipping containers with a cube depot logo
Al Harris, president of California-based Cube Depot, offers his customers a variety of unique-to-the-industry options for customizing shipping containers into the perfect storage, office, or housing unit. In this spirit of innovation, Harris began to develop an idea for a new kind of storage solution. SteelMaster invented the container cover roof system with Cube Depot and is still the industry leader in adding a roof and extra storage space between two shipping containers.

Rather than focusing on the storage potential within a shipping container, Harris and his team began to focus on storage using a shipping container. Specifically, they began to experiment with the idea of using intermodal containers as the structural base of a storage building. Questions began to arise as they were creating this structure, but perhaps none was bigger than the question of how to create a roofing system for the building. It was clear that an efficient, budget-friendly roofing system would be the key to giving the project life.

The Problem

• Shipping containers make for tremendous walls and interiors of a building, but the design needed an efficient roofing system.
• The shipping containers were double stacked, so a minimum 25 foot vertical peak height was required.

The Solution

• A team of SteelMaster design specialists developed a unique container roofing system, sacrificing neither design nor cost efficiency.

The Execution

• The roof connected on the outside edge of one side while connecting to the interior corners of the other, providing stability for the large roofing system.
• Final measurements were 60’ long by 60’ wide and the roofing system was made with a 9’ apex, giving the 25’ vertical clearance required.

The Results

• Parker’s concept coupled with Cube Depot’s innovation proved to be such a success that it made sense to consider it a prototype for future endeavors in this type of building.
• Not only was the project cost efficient, but it held up to design expectations and created a very rugged structure that was pleasing to the eye.

As of today, two more buildings are in the works – one in Santa Barbara and another in the Los Angeles area. These buildings will continue the innovation of the original started in Oakland, and expand with even more ingenuity from both Parker and the Cube Depot team.

SteelMaster and Cube Depot both believe that the greatest strength of this idea lies in the partnership of the two organizations. With an ultimate goal of shrinking the construction timeline through their partnership, SteelMaster and Cube Depot hope to dive even deeper into this exciting new idea in the future.

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