It was located on the coastal land, the developer filled the land with about 2m thick of soil. Then timber piles were installed to support the structure. The piles were driven down using drop hammer until "set". Single storey terrace houses were then built.
Before anyone moved in, the houses failed miserably. Why?
If you buy a property like this, what are you going to do?
The site was underlaid with 3m-6m of peat and deep soft marine clay. By filling up with soils, loads were imposed on the underlying compressible peat and clay. Time was not given for the underlying soils to stabilise. So when piles were installed, the 2m thick fills dragged and imposed more loads to the piles. Some piles failed, in particular the edge/corner piles. So the structures failed.
The large settlement of the ground also caused the front approach slab to sink badly and due to edge restraints, differential settlements and cracks came in.
Sometimes, developers or engineers thought that the buildings were just one storey, light and therefore did not do any soil investigation.
Without understanding or studying what laid beneath, caused this failure.
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