Seismic performance and height limits of ductile reinforced masonry shear wall buildings with boundary elements

•This paper investigates the seismic collapse capacity of buildings with ductile RM shear walls with boundary elements.•The study provides practical design recommendations to enhance overall structural performance.•Simple and efficient nonlinear numerical macro-model for RM shear walls is proposed.•Results demonstrate the potential of ductile RM shear walls with boundary elements as a SFRS in high-rise buildings.•It is concluded that the building height limits of NBCC 2015 can be relaxed for ductile RM shear walls.