Abstract: Traditional control algorithms have difficulty handling nonlinear behavior of structures, time variable features and parameter uncertainties of structural control systems under seismic excitation. A direct method based on the Off-and-Towards-Equilibrium (OTE) strategy was presented in this paper to overcome these difficulties. According to the proposed method, the control force can be designed by dividing the phase plane into mesh regions. Its advantage is that it can be used for a variety of control systems. In order to evalu ate the performance of the method, the seismic performance of a three-storey shear building with an active tendon system Was studied. The results show that the proposed method performs slightly better than the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) algorithm, while possessing several advantages over the LQR controller. Consequently, the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are verified.