General Basement Wall Design. take a unit strip, if your basement wall has a slab on top, you can treat it as a propped cantilever with Ko (Coefficient of Static earth pressure: as wall cant move to Ka state for failure).. If cantilever, design for lateral loading with Ka(Coefficient of active earth pressure). Significant Vertical Load If you have significant vertical load design it as a beam column and use ACI wall provision for min/ max reinforcement.