In today's construction world, aesthetic tall structures play a major role. The design of aesthetic high - rise buildings need to be checked for its safety against extreme load conditions such as earthquake, wind, etc. The provision of composite shear wall is one of the efficient methods to make high rise buildings seismic resistant. In this paper different types of shear walls, namely, concrete shear wall, silica fume concrete shear wall, steel plate shear wall and steel-silica fume concrete composite shear wall are considered for lift wall in 22 and 52 storeyed high-rise buildings. The seismic performance of these buildings is analysed using response spectrum method by ETABS. The factors such as storey displacement, storey drift and storey shear are studied and found that there is a significant reduction when compared to the conventional shear wall. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.