Energy performance of office building envelope designs in the five major climate zones - severe cold, cold, hot summer and cold winter, mild, and hot summer and warm winter - in China was investigated. A major city within each climate zone was selected. These were Harbin, Beijing, Shanghai, Kunming and Hong Kong. Generic building envelopes were developed based on data gathered from building surveys, local energy codes and the ASHRAE Standard. The overall thermal transfer value (OTTV) method and the heating degree-days technique were adopted in the analysis. Cooling and heating requirements due to heat gain/loss through the building envelopes were determined based on the respective OTTV parameters and building load coefficients. Different shape coefficients were also considered. For a typical floor, chiller load due to heat gain through the building envelope varied from 1.0 kW h/m(2) in Kunming to 23.5 kW h/m(2) in Beijing, and the heating load ranged from 2.7 kW h/m(2) in Hong Kong to 124.3 kW h/m(2) in Harbin. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.