Foundations are amazing and confusing to me - it's kind of like a land anchor, earth and wood and concrete and rebar joinery.

With no construction background, I assumed slab foundations were the way to go but my landlord is an architect and bemoaned some of the new construction in our area built on slab foundations. We are near a river and the soil is very sooty so the ground inevitably shifts a lot ... he said the best you can do is pier and beam foundations, and re-level the entire house every decade or so.