After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the state formulated the first five-year plan for national economic development with the development of heavy industry as the core. The assistance of the Soviet Union completely opened the prelude to China’s large-scale industrial construction. With the continuous increase of urban energy consumption in China and the huge pressure it brings to the environment, urban planning and design aiming at energy conservation and climate adaptability has attracted more and more attention. Residential building layout is an important part of urban planning and design, which is closely related to building environmental energy consumption and urban microclimate. Therefore, it is necessary to study the energy saving and climate adaptive design strategy of residential building layout. Yichun is a cold city, located in the northernmost part of the three northeastern provinces, with a population of about 1 million. Its climate is characterized by continuous low temperature in winter, and the extreme value of daily lowest air temperature in Yichun City since 1981 is -42.2°C. The highest temperature in summer is 35°C. The unique geographical location and climate have created Yichun’s unique urban quality, and outdoor cultural activities are also unique. Yichun is a place with four distinct seasons, and each season has its own characteristics. The beauty of the four seasons contrasts greatly. The best travel time in Yichun is from June to September. In this study, the scientific nature of environment numerical simulation software is verified. Taking the surrounding residential open space as the research object, reasonable grid simulation size and initial boundary conditions are set. The quantitative relationship between design elements and thermal comfort level is established through software simulation. After repeated and a large number of hourly simulation verification, combined with the spatial distribution map and numerical distribution map of thermal comfort, the design elements and open space are established. On this basis, the optimization strategies of open space in residential areas in extreme weather areas are put forward, including the reasonable layout of activity areas, careful selection of open positions, attention to the proportion of open space, attention to plane enclosure and corner units, encouragement of secondary restrictions of activity space, reasonable selection of underlying surface materials, and reasonable layout of water bodies. This paper mainly studies the design of outdoor communication space in Yichun residential area in winter. The average temperature in winter is -14°C ~ -2°C. Through the study of design methods and countermeasures, an operable Yichun residential area design method is found.