The purpose of this study is to analyze the characteristics of elevation design of apartment buildings in other countries, in order to search the new directions of elevation design planning of domestic apartment, so it can plan the qualitative improvement of housing environments can be fulfilled. This study will proceed to examine the following phase. As a preliminary study it trys to classify the formal characteristics of foreign apartment, in order to grasp the seven general ideas and methods of the elevation design through analyzing various design samples of well designed housing buildings. And it searches the variatino methods of the elevation design, and it can suggest the diverse elevation design samples of housing buildings.