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Adding a basement for home construction is obviously the owner's choice. But as a structural engineer for home construction in Pakistan, I would highly recommend not to add basement. This is due to lot of additional expenses, like RCC retaining walls, waterproofing, flood control, toilet/bath expenses, ventilation etc. If designed and constructed properly you do not need to worry about earthquake. Again, I would have added one and half additional floors from the same money being spent on basement and also forget about the worries mentioned above. Or could have spent it elsewhere like finishes, elevations etc. And what do you mean by Pillar foundation?

Design strips are required to get total reinforcement area by integrating stresses of area objects.

Thank you sir. This forum is by far one of the best forum I'm in.

I remember Nowshera has some flood history too so you might want to reconsider the basement portion based on that. However, if you still wan to to have a basement, a semi-basement, just 4' below grade might be more in-expensive option. You can also ask your structural engineer to design a masonry retaining wall (if he can). That can save you some money. Also, things to watch out are water proofing details at the exterior face of the wall. Thanks.