Geotechnical constructions are sophisticated buildings due to the complex behaviour of soil and its interaction with the structure. Passed design processes are commonly confined as difficult and, depending on possibilities and skills of the processor, more or less innovative, creative and heuristic search for defined objectives under given constraints. Wholistic approaches using numerical optimisation to support the constructive engineer in this task do not exist until now. Therefore, potential cost effectiveness, construction time, load capacity and/or serviceability are often not fully exploited.

In this paper systematic approaches for comprehensive optimisation of selected geotechnical constructions are presented. Different optimisation paradigms are introduced and demonstrated using evolutionary algorithms. The methods presented here conveniently allow the achievement of effective designs concerning various intentions, as is shown exemplarily.