Technically, the gov doesn't really build all that much. It's the private contractors and private firms they hire to do it.
But theres a fun thing about some hundred or so Marines got greenlit to buy 3d printers and start building a wide range of stuff for themselves. After making new crayon flavors, they went on and built extremely cheap gear delivery drones of some 700lbs capacity and a whole slew of other stuff without red tape. It's actually impressive.
Google marine 3d print, cool articles and stories.
Lookup marine plywood drone. They had to do it with a firm due to gov contracting laws. But from what I understand it's mostly designed/built by marines (word of mouth). There are more and more stories like this that are popping up. Sad part, big contractors cry foul of marines making repair parts and their own gear. From what I understand, that's why they need other firms to "take ownership" on projects.
Theres a cool 3d print barracks project you can Google too.
