Application of Soil Mechanics in Designing Building Foundations

The first part of this paper reviews the causes of building settlements, and summarizes what soil mechanics has to offer as a basis for the design of building foundations. In the second part are described the foundations of two large office buildings in Boston, Mass., which were designed specifically for the purpose of reducing total and differential settlements to a tolerable amount. The settlements of these buildings are compared with those of other large buildings designed without the use of soil mechanics. The methods of reducing existing differential settlements are not discussed. The success of any method such as underpinning, the application of additional load to the lighter sections of a structure, the provision of continuous jacking arrangements, or the method of “bleeding” the underground by means of borings adjacent to and under those parts of a structure that have not settled are dependent on accurate observations of the behavior of the structure which is to be remedied.