Due to global warming, the overheating risk in the severe cold region of China has attracted attention, but so far, no studies have examined summer overheating in this region. This paper aims to reveal the overheating risk in recent and future climates in the severe cold region of China. An 18-storey residential building in the severe cold region of China was monitored from May to September 2021 to validate the simulation data of the indoor temperature. Weather files of the typical meteorological year (TMY) from 2007 to 2020, observations in 2021, and forecasts for the climate in different carbon emission scenarios (2030, 2060) were used to simulate the indoor temperature and assess the overheating risk. The results revealed the severity of the overheating risk; the overheating hours in the south-facing bedroom were recorded as 884 h (24.07%) with the TMY weather data and 1043 h (28.40%) in 2030 and 1719 h (46.81%) in 2060 under the RCP8.5 carbon emission scenario. Thus, the low carbon emissions policy may significantly alleviate overheating. Moreover, to cope with climate change, it is suggested that the Chinese local design standards should consider the summer overheating risk and make the necessary adjustments.

Carbon-neutral architectural design focuses on rationally utilizing the building’s surroundings to reduce its environmental impact. Resilient ventilation systems, developed according to the thermal comfort requirements of building energy-saving research, have few applications. We studied the Jin-an Shopping Mall in Harbin and established the middle point height (h), middle point horizontal location (d), roof angle (α), and exposure to floor ratio (k) as the morphological parameters of the atrium. Using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), the mean radiant temperature (MRT), and the universal thermal climate index calculations (UTCI), this program was set to switch off air conditioning when the resilient ventilation met the thermal comfort requirement to achieve energy savings. The energy-saving efficiency (U) was calculated based on the energy consumption of the original model, and U could reach 7.34–9.64% according to the simulation and prediction. This study provides methods and a theoretical basis for renovating other commercial complexes to improve comfort and control energy consumption.