Rescuing a Building from Demolition Using AI, Satellite Data & PLAXIS 3D

When a 12,000-square-meter grain warehouse in Jazan City, Saudi Arabia began experiencing dramatic settlement, demolition seemed like a possible outcome. But this was no ordinary industrial building.

The facility stores up to 1,200 tons of grain and supports food distribution for approximately 1.5 million people in the region — a critical component of local food security near the Red Sea and Yemen border. Shutting it down or demolishing it would have had economic and humanitarian consequences far beyond structural repair costs. 

 Hamzah Al-Hashemi, CEO and technical director of GeoStruXer, shares insight of the Jazan City project at Bentley Systems' Going Digital Awards winners. Image source: Bentley Systems.

When tasked with rescuing the warehouse from potential demolition, engineers Hamzah Al-Hashemi and Dana Al-Faleyleh knew they needed a diverse arsenal of tools. The building had settled up to 170mm in some places, with cracking walls and shifting foundations. Historical information on the building’s movement was limited. Potential solutions seemed highly expensive and disruptive to building operations, causing the building owners to wonder if the building was salvageable.

Applying healthy doses of diligent engineering, modern technology, artistic creativity, and clear communication, Al-Hashemi and Al-Faleyleh developed an innovative solution that drastically reduced costs, minimized disruption, and essentially saved a building from ruin. Their efforts earned them the inaugural Bentley Envision Award for Sustainable Infrastructure, given by Bentley Systems as part of its 2025 Year in Infrastructure and Going Digital Awards (YII). The project was recognized for demonstrating technical expertise, economic value, and measurable environmental and social benefits.

What Caused the Settlement?

Completed in 2014, the warehouse had exhibited dramatic movement of walls and floor slabs, in an area known for unstable soils, including:

• expansive clays,

• collapsible loess, and

• deformable salt domes.

The instability and resulting settlement was particularly problematic for this busy facility subject to heavy loads of trucks and industrial equipment.

The grain warehouse (lower left) at Jazan City was exhibiting dramatic settlement, leading to an innovative solution developed by GeoStruXer. Image source: Bentley Systems.

After initial studies produced cost-prohibitive solutions, the building owners opened a public bidding process inviting consultants and contractors to offer other alternatives. GeoStruXer, a firm formed by husband-and-wife team Al-Hashemi and Al-Faleyleh, was contacted by Sky Specialized, the selected earthwork contractor, to analyze alternatives and develop a feasible solution.

The building had no structural monitoring equipment installed, and theoretical modeling of available soil data did not produce the amount of settlement experienced. The team suspected another factor was at work, perhaps creep — a time-dependent deformation of soil under constant loading. “We suspected there was something moving with time,” said Al-Hashemi, CEO and technical director of GeoStruXer. “But to calibrate the creep factor, we needed historical data, and it was not available.”

How Did Engineers Reconstruct Settlement without On-Site Monitoring?

To fill in the gaps, the GeoStruxer team proposed a retrospective analysis that used satellite data to reproduce the building deformation history. Working with remote-sensing and engineering consultant Geofem, the team used interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technology to obtain ground deformation data needed to reproduce the building’s settlement history. The technology uses radar images of specific areas collected at different times to detect horizontal and vertical movement of ground surfaces. “We could travel back in time to 2014 and obtain the deformation of the building,” said Al-Hasemi.

The team supplemented the satellite data with field and laboratory testing to fine-tune the soil model and simulate the soil’s behavior under actual loading conditions. Using Bentley’s PLAXIS 3D to perform deformation analysis, the team zeroed in on the primary culprit in the ground settlement: the salt dome, a subsurface formation roughly five kilometers deep, and subject to creep when exposed to moisture and loading. “We compared the PLAXIS output with the InSAR result and said, ‘Aha, this is the problem,’” noted Al-Hashemi.

Husband and wife Hamzah Al-Hashemi and Dana Al-Faleyleh formed GeoStruXer to combine their geotechnical and structural engineering backgrounds and tackle challenging projects such as the Jazan grain warehouse. Image source: Bentley Systems.

Why Were 70% Fewer Micropiles Required?

With a more thorough understanding of the problem, the GeoStruxer team focused on developing a new solution. The original building foundation consisted of a concrete slab supported on driven piles, much like a table supported by legs. The main deformation was occurring near the center of the building, far away from the piles.

An initial solution proposed by another engineering consultant proposed installing a system of micropiles — smaller drilled piles distributed throughout the building. The micropiles would enable work to be staged so building operations could continue, but the cost of the 2,700-pile system was not feasible for the owner.

Rethinking soil-structure interaction. Equipped with a detailed geo-structural model, GeoStruxer took a closer look at the data to develop a modified solution. While the initial solution conservatively assumed the 2,700 micropiles carried all the loads and the slab did not contribute load-carrying capabilities, GeoStruxer used PLAXIS to analyze soil-structure interaction and determine that the slab could carry a significant portion of the load. Factoring in this additional information, GeoStruxer was able to reduce the number of piles from approximately 2,700 to approximately 800 — a 70% reduction. The steel pile sizes were also reduced, reducing the overall carbon footprint by nearly 50% from the original design.

But the team was not done refining the solution. To design a new reinforced-concrete slab, or raft, for the rehabilitation, the team coupled Bentley’s RAM Concept with PLAXIS to develop a precise, calibrated model of the foundation system. Using artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, the team was able to optimize the overall design of a pre-stressed, post-tensioned concrete slab design, reducing the thickness of the concrete and the amount of steel reinforcement.

Because the design featured pre-stressed concrete, the post-tensioning tendons represented key elements of the design, so GeoStruXer leveraged the interoperability of the two software platforms to optimize the design. “We were able to determine the minimum required tendons to achieve the same strength,” said Al-Faleyleh, co-founder and structural engineer at GeoStruXer.

How was AI used in foundation design? AI scripting was also used to optimize other aspects of the design, such as the number of micropiles and their locations. As part of the optimization process, the team also conducted load tests in the field to verify modeling results, according to Al-Hashemi. “We use advanced soil models in PLAXIS, and one of those models requires 18 parameters. It's quite challenging to keep changing the 18 parameters to match the site response. So we did a sensitivity analysis using AI to tell us the most influential factors and how to change them to match the site response,” he said.

GeoStruXer used PLAXIS 3D to model expected temporary deformation of the completed foundation during seismic activity. Image source: Bentley Systems.

How was operational continuity maintained? In addition to the historical analysis and design, GeoStruXer modeled future behavior of the building under various conditions, including potential seismic events. “We asked the client how long they want this structure to be in operation,” said Al-Hashemi. “They told us 10 years. So we estimated the deformation after 10 years and were able to tell them, ‘it will be deformed, but within the acceptable numbers.’”

Construction of the rehabilitation system was conducted in a modular, panel-by-panel manner, keeping the warehouse operational throughout the process. Work was completed in 2025, and the deformation has so far been limited to 5 millimeters, according to Al-Hashemi. Satellite monitoring will continue on a regular basis to track long-term deformation.

Final Design Optimization

Construction of the rehabilitation system was conducted in a modular, panel-by-panel manner, keeping the warehouse operational throughout the process. Image source: Bentley Systems.

Team Effort for Infrastructure Resilience

Along with all of the technology and innovation, the close relationship of a husband-wife team throughout the project adds a unique human element to the journey. The duo maintained clear communication throughout the project, with ongoing discussions of how geotechnical and structural engineering aspects interacted.

“I'm the geotechnical engineer and my wife is the structural engineer,” said Al-Hashemi, “We decided to form this company to combine the geotechnical and structural engineering backgrounds for this particular project. It's a true collaboration.”

The human and technical aspects were further aided by the interoperability of the Bentley software. “You can see the power of being able to connect and understand the geotechnical and the structural aspects, along with the construction,” noted Chris Bradshaw, chief sustainability and education officer, Bentley Systems. “Now all those pieces have come together and you have a solution that works.”

This article was sponsored by Bentley Systems.

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