Well, it’s unfortunate, and it will be expensive to replace, but my thoughts are:

As long as we’re doing it, cover the entire concrete slab area, kitchen area included.  Maybe pour the missing southeast corner as well.  The missing northeast corner is steep enough that leaving it as grass is probably okay.

Bring the eaves of the structure down to possibly 8 feet from 10.  Having some slope on the roof will make it drain.  The flat roof dripped for a long time after a rain.  Lower eaves will give shade earlier in the day.

Build it with welded steel trusses.  Possibly concrete or masonry columns.  I suspect part of the issue here was rot at the base of the wooden posts.  I’ll have to get out there and look.  One turning loose would be all it took.

extend the roof on the west side, and have a vertical plywood wall on the edge of the slope.  Put in some hammocks or shelves to hold PGs and harnesses out of the wind and sun.  That will leave more space for people on the east, social side of the container.  It will also cover up the ugly infrastructure side of the container, and shade the A/C unit.

Agreed.  Great plan, Tim!

Author changed by request.

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Good points Tim. I think steel should be galvanized to avoid rust, but welding galvanized steel requires paint over the welds. Perhaps a prefabricated structure with the right dimensions already exists, would be galvanized, and we could just bolt it together.

We might want to consider not permanently attaching the roofing material, so if they do blow off again they don’t take the structure with it.

I suspect cheap metal roofing would suffice since nobody’s going to care how loud it is when it rains, nor will they care about the lack of insulation. If it blows off it would be cheap to replace.

I assume not having walls ends up making the roof act as a sail.

I was out looking at the remains, and I think what happened was that the wood on the columns deteriorated due to moisture.  So a load that it might have taken ten years ago just separated the wood.  The bolts holding the bottom end are still in the metal brackets.

I’m not opposed to a structural ‘fuse’, so that things break at expected points, but in general, I think I’d rather just make sure it stays together.

We have quite a variety of skills in the club, and I doubt I’m the most qualified to design a new building.

I’ve looked at prefabbed steel buildings in the past, but they’re pretty pricey.  How that compares with the time/money we’d spend designing/fabricating our own I dunno. They’re generally designed like pole barns, which wouldn’t be bad, giving a large clear span, but they have many posts along each side.  That’s not so bad  for a barn, or on the windward side, where I want to put a wall anyway, but on the east side I’d like a big free span as well.

If we could get a prefab roof and put it on some big trusses spanning the length of the concrete with only a few support columns,  that might be good.

Google “steel carports” to see the kind of thing I was looking at.

Looking at what’s gone, though, if there was a solid wall between the two sets of steps, and we didn’t replace the south sink (since there’s still a sink in the kitchen area), the unobstructed shade area at each end of the container could be much bigger.

DHG  read this ! ( do not use metal roof it can tear and kill other peoples on parking lot  )

Try to safe roof to re-build and neat for future …

here –>>> Ideas “roof flap”  like when high wind then allow air flow though roof !

example ==> 

think about Roof and shade design for safety to spectator !

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Well, we needed to put a new coat of paint on it anyway!

Tim, My post was a reply to Josh’s . I know sheet metal roofs can be designed to withstand winds….

“We might want to consider not permanently attaching the roofing material, so if they do blow off again they don’t take the structure with it.

I suspect cheap metal roofing would suffice since nobody’s going to care how loud it is when it rains, nor will they care about the lack of insulation. If it blows off it would be cheap to replace.

I assume not having walls ends up making the roof act as a sail.”