A good understanding of the soil type is important for Engineers to design a safe and economical earth retaining wall to facilitate excavation works. The paper presents a case study of a project in Singapore which adopted various types of earth retaining wall system for excavation works for the construction of basement structure of a residential project. The various methods adopted include open-cut slope, sheetpiles and bored piles. The retaining walls were cantilever or supported by horizontal struts or raker struts. The various methods were chosen by taking into account the nature of soil type at the site, geometry of the excavation and the need to minimize damages to existing buildings. The various type of retaining walls were rigorously analysed using finite element method, Plaxis 2D and their predicted behavior during excavation will be presented. The predicted behaviors of the various retaining walls will be compared with actual results from field instrumentation. Site observations on the actual soil encountered and its behavior will be highlighted.