Man-made structures are not often encountered as heraldic charges, but there are some that are found in South Africa. Ironically, the oldest kind currently to be  seen in Armoria is in the newest coat of arms: the typical Nguni-style beehive hut, which appears as the crest in the arms of KwaZulu-Natal. It was also to be found in the seal (not an armorial device) of King William’s Town.

The huts of the Nguni and Sotho are, however, not intended to be permanent. Traditionally, they are burned down when the head of a household dies. Permanent structures were an innovation brought into South Africa by the Dutch, who built the Castle in Cape Town. This building appears in a number of military coats of arms, although Armoria does not currently have an example of it. A structure that appears in two Port Elizabeth school coats of arms is the Donkin memorial pyramid, appearing in the arms of Pearson High School (which once occupied premises facing the Donkin Reserve) and Lawson Brown High School.

The Rondebosch Municipality cannot really be said to have had a coat of arms, but in the landscape it bore as a “shield of arms” was a fanciful representation of the town hall, as well as a steam train.

The Transvaal Colony did not have a coat of arms at all, but its colonial seal included a mine headgear built of steel girders (and a steam locomotive). Bophuthatswana’s coat of arms also included a mine headgear, but a much uglier, more modern one, of concrete construction.

The town of Despatch, which grew up around a brickfield, incorporated the brickworks chimney into its arms, while a fortification of sorts can be seen in the arms of the Hoërskool P J Olivier, which has a battlemented grey stone wall in the inescutcheon which represents the Graham family.

The Ekurhuleni metropole incorporates a shape into the base of its arms which resembles a city skyline, against the background of a mine dump. Formed in 2000, the metro incorporates several large towns at the eastern end of the Witwatersrand Main Reef.