The purposes of this paper are to develop a theory for a new incremental inverse problem based upon the inverse treatment of a design sensitivitiy analysis procedure and to show the applicability of this formulation to performance-based structural redesign. It is shown that the present two-step redesign procedure is appropriate for developing an efficient performance-based structural redesign method and is able to handle easily a design problem with design variable grouping. The preliminary redesign procedure is implemented via the direct application of the incremental inverse problem and the subsequent principal redesign procedure in terms of two parameters enhances its efficiency together with satisfaction of requirements on structural performances and cost. An example of a four-story single-span plane building frame is introduced to demonstrate the efficiency and usefulness of the present design method. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.