Abstract: A great quantity of computer-sided data has been made by means of the normalized curve method of estimating consolidation settlement for saturated cohesive subsoils in this paper to research into regularities of subsoil settlement varying with the shapes of loading area and with the foundation depths while the total loads and the loading area are constant. A proposal of using the regularities to adjust the settlement of foundations of multi storied residence buildings is given which will make the design more reasonable. Finally, the estimating method is cheeked experimentally by the observed results of an in-situ loading test.