Levees in the Netherlands have traditionally been constructed from soil. Climate change and land subsidence require heightening and/or reinforcing these existing levees. Traditional reinforcements demand additional space, which in some cases conflicts with existing buildings. Applying sheet pile walls in levees allows for strengthening while minimizing needed footprint. However, a validated design approach that complies with relevant regulations lacked. To enable validation, a full-scale field test programme has been performed near the town of Eemdijk (The Netherlands). This has resulted in better insight in the soil-structure interaction of the structurally reinforced levee, on soft soil, loaded by high water and uplift conditions. This paper describes the rationale behind the test setup and operation of the test programme in relation to the current design codes and guidelines. First the set of knowledge questions to be resolved is considered. These questions gave direction to the type of failure tests, the required instrumentation and the impact of conclusions.@en