Natural ventilation, widely applied in green building design, effectively utilizes suitable outdoor climate conditions for indoor cooling, reducing energy consumption of air conditioning systems. To fully exploit its potential, a scientific performance-based design approach is essential. However, existing studies predominantly concentrate on design optimisations under steady-state conditions, neglecting dynamic climate variations and appropriate control strategies. This study a multi-objective performance-based design method for natural ventilation design is proposed and the optimal control strategy for ventilated openings is also determined. An ultra-low-energy office building is selected for case study, and the research aims to maximizing natural room temperature comfort hours and minimizing the annual cumulative cooling and heating loads. The results indicate that (1) the optimal design parameters vary significantly under different control strategies, highlighting the importance of considering control strategies during the design stage; and (2) the performance of the optimal solutions differs considerably under various control strategies. The control strategy for natural ventilation based on monthly dynamic temperature ranges achieves a 59.24% annual energy savings and 5540 annual comfort hours compared to the baseline without natural ventilation. This demonstrates that climate-responsive control strategies can effectively enhance the potential of natural ventilation application. The study provides valuable guidance for performance-oriented optimisation in natural ventilation design for buildings.