Once the site preparation was completed, a layer of geotextile was used as the separator before placing of 1m sand blanket as working platform and drainage layer. Subdrains (shown in Photo 4) and manholes were also introduced within the sand blanket to reduce the buildup of pore water pressure in the sand layer during consolidation. The PVDs were then installed down to elevations of -10 m MSL with additional 0.5 m of sand blanket (or drainage layer) placed on the top (as shown in Photo 5). Another layer of geotextile was laid to reduce the contamination of the sand blanket from the surcharge material. The surcharge to create the vertical load up to 75 to 85 kPa was done by placing the crushed rock as shown in Figure 3. This crushed rock was later reused in the pavement construction. A 15 m counterweight berm with crushed rock was placed on both sides of the main embankment for improving the stability during staged loading. The construction sequence of the ground improvement work is summarized in Figure 4. Typically, two (2) stages of loading were performed to reduce the instability of the embankment through preloading. The embankment height in the first stage was set at 2.8m with a waiting period of 3 months. The second stage loading up to the final embankment thickness was placed for 6-11 months depending on the required degree of consolidation. The water from the soft clay through the PVDs and sand blanket followed by the subdrains was collected in the manholes (Photo 6) before pumping to areas beyond the GI area. Different surcharge loads as summarized in Figure 5 were placed in various areas depending on the final pavement elevations.