London based Richard Rogers Partnership has completed the new Welsh National Assembly building in Cardiff. In terms of environmental performance, the design brief required that the Assembly Building should achieve an "Excellent" certification under the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM).The design approach employed to achieve this target and to meet the Assembly's constitutional responsibilities for sustainable development are as follows:
Design life of 100 years, use of indigenous materials, minimise energy consumption and waste, application of renewable technologies, to be an "exemplar" building in terms of sustainability. This approach has yielded an environmental design for the building which uses natural ventilation and passive systems to heat and cool the building which will have an overall effect of reducing running costs for the building by 30-50%.