Founding light structures on a deep layer of soft clay is a great challenge faceing the design engineer. As an economic solutions, the designer turned to shell or skirt configurations in dealing with difficult foundation problems and avoiding the use of deep foundations or other costly soil improvement schemes. This paper introduces different configurations for foundations resting on soft clay. Elliptical, trapezoidal and inverted folded footings have been employed as an alternative to the conventional flat shallow footings. The purpose of the search is to reach the optimal configurations of foundations, which reduces the stress on soft clay and, hence, reduces the thickness and reinforcement.