The paper presents the results of analysis of a piled raft foundation bearing on soft clay at 6 m depth. Based on conventional design, the designer had proposed transferring of the loads using 670 numbers of 1200 mm diameter and 40-m-long piles. To economize the foundation system, the authors proposed use of hybrid piled raft. Using the available borehole data, a design profile was developed. The foundation loads were used as an input to Plaxis 3D to develop a model for soil–structure interaction. A total of 350 piles of 40 m length were provided below the multi-storeyed building and 47 piles of 30 m length were used for the single-storeyed part. The raft thickness was optimized at 1.35 m so as to ensure that the stresses and deflection of the soils between the piles are fairly uniform. This resulted in a very large saving in the foundation cost.