Technical Committee 204: “Underground Construction in Soft Ground” of the International Society
for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) was first established as TC28 in 1989 to
provide a forum for interchange of ideas and discussion amongst representative from different countries
with an active interest in tunnelling and deep excavations in the urban environment. In 1994, under the
Chairmanship of Prof. Keiichi Fujita, TC28 organised its first symposium as a satellite event to the ISSMGE
International Conference in New Delhi. Since then, the host society of TC28 was handed over from
the Japanese Geotechnical Society to the British Geotechnical Society, under the Chairmanship of Prof.
Robert Mair, and then to the French Geotechnical Society, under the Chairmanship of Prof. Richard
Kastner