The present nonlinear model reduction methods unfit the nonlinear benchmark buildings as their vibration equations belong to a non-affine system. Meanwhile, the controllers designed directly by the nonlinear control strategy have a high order, and they are difficult to be applied actually. Therefore, a new active vibration control way which fits the nonlinear buildings is proposed. The idea of the proposed way is based on the model identification and structural model linearization, and exerting the control force to the built model according to the force action principle. This proposed way has a better practicability as the built model can be reduced by the balance reduction method based on the empirical Grammian matrix. A three-story benchmark structure is presented and the simulation results illustrate that the proposed method is viable for the civil engineering structures.