China has a large number of existing public buildings and rapidly growing energy demand of public buildings. For this reason, the government and the relevant administrative sections have issued many policies, regulations, and incentives to decelerate the growth of the energy consumption of public buildings. However, the diverse types of buildings, as well as different design standards and construction technologies, create large differences in the energy consumption rules and energy efficiency standards of different buildings. The total number of universities in China is approximately 2845, with 13 types of buildings. The annual energy consumption is nearly 30 million tons of standard coal, and the water consumption is nearly 4 million tons. The total energy consumption accounts for 8% of the total social energy consumption. The energy and water consumption of each student are 4 times and 2 times that of the average Chinese resident, respectively, and show with a rigid growth trend. Based on the concept of “green performance” proposed by the “ Evaluation Standard for Green Buildings” (GB/T50378-2019), this study takes the most representative building types of libraries and dormitories as examples. The problems of these building types are systematically analyzed in terms of planning layout, lighting, ventilation, thermal comfort, system energy consumption and equipment energy consumption through on-site investigation, thermal environment testing, energy consumption data analysis, and environment, shape and structure design simulation. Finally, the energy efficiency design strategy model of university buildings based on green performance analysis is established, including planning and design strategy, form design strategy, construction design strategy, system design strategy, and equipment use strategy, especially the sub-items of form design and space division in the formal design strategy. This strategy is the best response to the need to advance the energy efficiency design of these buildings. From the beginning of the design, energy efficiency should be combined with architectural planning and layout, functional design, construction design, system design and other noumenon elements. On the one hand, the strategy considers the relationship between the sub items and energy efficiency such as shape design and spatial division related to the building function; on the other hand, it also considers the relationship between the system design and energy efficiency of large-scale buildings, to meet the requirements of 65% energy conservation in “The Design Standard for Energy Efficiency of Public Buildings” (GB 50189–2015).These considerations are all representative of a design strategy that incorporates green performance characteristics. The research results show that the existing buildings can be retrofitted to fully tap their energy efficiency potential, and new buildings should incorporate energy efficiency from the stage of architectural design, to allow technology to serve the design; achieve the efficiency, health and applicability goals of green buildings; and achieve the energy efficiency design goal based on green performance analysis.