Due to the low-regulated but high energy consumption residential stock and the energy standards required in China, awareness has been raised that refurbishment of the existing residential buildings is the solution to upgrade energy-efficiency. Cities in Northern China, such as Beijing, Harbin, Shenyang and Dalian, have conducted residential refurbishment for years. However, the design of refurbishment is often problematic, resulting in the malpractice of monotonous forms and fuzzy performance. Regu-lations and standards that come mostly as energy-consumption requirements fail to guide specific design solutions and to address the diversity of individual projects. The applied retrofit methods can be only measured at the end of retrofitting construction process, with little indication for design. Therefore, this paper aims at a design decision-making approach to address detailed design strategies and sup-port energy-efficiency refurbishment of residential buildings. Based on itemising residential building facade components, collecting existing façade constructional information, and compiling green design strategies on façade system, the energy performance of each green design strategy is evaluated. Integrated design strategies, in accordance with the evaluated results, are proposed. Then those inte-grated strategies are systematically assessed with computer simulations and physical model testing for optimisation and informed choices. This approach can provide integrated green design strategies that quantify the impact of residential building facade components refurbishment, as well as decision-making information towards energy-efficiency upgrade for designers and related groups, such as contractors and home owners.