The HUBα‐Sightseeing Gate in Guangzhou, which is a connected tall building structure, is composed of two main frame–shear wall towers, which are 86·5 m high, and two steel galleries at top and bottom, respectively. The top gallery is a 120 m long‐span steel truss. Vicious dampers are set in the two main towers and the top gallery. It is an ultra‐limit structure with complicated structural shape and hybrid structure system. Design idea of performance‐based seismic design is presented in this paper. Seismic performance of the structure under different levels of ground motion is analysed and verified by different methods, such as elastic analysis under frequent earthquake, unyielding and elastic check of structure element under medium earthquake and inelastic dynamic time history analysis under rare earthquake. Taking the result of shaking table test as a reference, reasonable enhanced measures of seismic design are suggested. Meanwhile, wind‐induced vibration time history analysis under different directions based on wind tunnel test is applied in this paper, and comfortableness problem can be well resolved. The control effects of vicious dampers on internal force, deformation, acceleration and energy dissipation of the structure are also studied. By means of the analysis methods mentioned above, and other analyses such as whole structure stability, temperature effect, floor vibration and so on, relevant measures of ultra‐limit structure design are suggested, and the performance objective of the structure can be well realized. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
