Abstract: In order to build muhistory residence buildings with good seismic performance and low cost, the RC shear wall with bi-directional single row of steel bars are proposed to be used. For the purpose of knowing the seismic performance of this shear wall with different format of boundary element and comparing with traditional masonry shear wall, a low-frequency quasi-static cyclic loading experimental study on three low-rise RC shear wails with low reinforcement ratio and one masonry shear wall made of confined shale bricks was carried out. The shear-span ratio of four specimens was 1.0. Based upon the experimental study, load-carrying capacity, ductility, stiffness and its degradation, hysteretic behavior, energy dissipation and failure phenomena of each shear wall were analyzed. A simplified mechanical model and calculative formulas for of low-rise RC shear wails with bi-directional single row of steel bars were established. load-carrying capacity agreed well with the experimental results. Experiments stu seismic performance of low-rise RC shear wall with masonry shear wall and it satisfied the requirements the load-carrying capacity The calculating results of dy has indicated that the bi-directional single row of steel bars is better than that of of seismic design for muhistory residence buildings.