In order to achieve the desired lightweight and robust design of a structure, it is preferable to design a structure and its control system, simultaneously, which is termed the combined optimal design. A constant-cross-sectional area cantilever beam was chosen as the optimum design method, An initial load and a time-varying disturbance were applied at the free end of the beam. Sliding mode control was selected, due to its insensitivity to the disturbance, compared with other modes. It is known that the sliding mode control is robust to the disturbance and is uncertain, only if a matching condition is met, after giving a switching hyper plane. In this study, the optimum method was used for the design of the switching hyper plane, and the objective function of the optimum switching hyper plane was assumed to be the objective of the control system. The total weight of the structure was treated as a constraint, and the cross sectional areas of the beam were considered as design variables, the result being a nonlinear programming problem. To solve it, the sequential linear programming method was applied. As a result of the optimum design, the effect of attenuating vibrations has been substantially improved. Moreover, the lightweight design of the structure became possible as a result of the relationship of the weight of the structure to the control objective function.