It never fails. The highest fill, tallest structure, or heaviest loads always end up located on the part of the site underlain by the softest/weakest soils. Ground improvement techniques such as stone columns and soil mixing can help but have their limitations. Particularly when soils are very soft and weak (think of toothpaste consistency), many ground improvement methods are either difficult to construct or simply will not work. One exception, and a notable one, is the Rigi

Let's face it, there are some really sloppy sites out there upon which we are trying to build. Really sloppy! Usually when faced with such a challenge, engineers default to either (1) removing the "bad" soils and replacing them with clean fill material, or (2) bypassing the bad soils using a deep foundation system. Both options, while technically feasible, often come with a very large price tag. There is a ground modification technique known globally as Mass Stabilization, an