The present paper implements a novelty semi-active structural control design on a two-story building, with the aim of reducing vibrations caused by transient type loads. The analyzed structure corresponds to an experimental prototype that was fully characterized and modeled according to the diaphragm hypothesis. The controller used was based on the action of a pair of real magnetorheological (MR) dampers whose operation is emulated by the phenomenological model. These mechanisms are governed by a numerical system that is based on non-linear autoregressive model with exogenous inputs (NARX)-type artificial neural networks, which have the ability to determine the necessary optimal control forces and the voltages required for the development of these forces through a prediction model and an inverse model, which are pioneers in this kind of systems. The results obtained show that the control design based on neural networks that was developed in the present study is a reliable and efficient, achieving reductions of up to 69% for the peak response value.