Project Brief

This project involved the demolition of the old primary school and the construction of a completely new school on the same site. The Planning Authority decided to keep part of the façade of the old school, designed by Architect Renato Laferla in the mid-1950s, and incorporate it as a design in the new building.

The new school has 40 classrooms – 26 normal classrooms and a number of other classrooms for specific subjects such as personal and social development, arts, music, science, literacy, and ethics. The school also has a childcare center, a public library and a hall that can accommodate about 300 people. The public library, the hall, and two playgrounds can be used by the local community after school hours through separate entrances. The size of the entire school, including recreational areas, is approximately 10,000 square meters.

As part of this project, we also built the new quarters of the Msida Sea Scouts, with an area of more than 500 square meters. The Msida Sea Scouts quarters also have separate access.

Beneath the school we constructed a car park on two levels which can take around 180 vehicles.

The foundation stone of the new Primary School was laid in October 2020, with construction works completed in January 2024. The school opened its doors in September 2024.

This project was done with an investment of approximately €24 million and was partially funded under the NextGenerationEU programmes through the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) of Malta.

 

FTS Achieves a Net Zero CO2 Emission with an EPC Rating of -9 for the New St. Theresa College Msida Primary School

The construction of the new Msida Primary School is a showcase of FTS’s unwavering commitment in building healthier future for the years to come and goes beyond the statutory requirements as laid down in the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive – EU 2018/844.

Indeed, this school sets out new environmental standards in Malta’s educational facilities as it is the first-ever carbon neutral public school to be constructed locally to achieve the highest energy classification rating of A+ with an EPC rating of -9.

 

EPC design stage including preliminary studies

The new school design building was designed to best-practice standards and in such a way so as to ensure as low as possible energy requirements.

In so-doing, FTS, in collaboration with the University of Malta, conducted preliminary technical studies on the architectural design concepts aimed at arriving to appropriate and cost-optimal measures to bring the designs to nearly zero-energy status. The study was based on the officially recognized Simplified Building Energy Modelling for Malta software (SBEM-mt) for non-residential buildings.

 

Energy efficiency

A three-tier approach was adopted in terms of energy efficiency measures, namely:

(i) energy efficiency measures related to the building envelope including but not limited to the use of low emissivity double-glazed windows having a minimum U-value of 4W/mCK and external envelope insulation;

(ii) measures related to the energy systems performance, including heat pump water heaters with COP of 3, high efficiency air-conditioners with COP of 4 and EER of 3.8, and high efficiency T5 luminaires; and

(iii) installation of rooftop solar photovoltaics which were increased to a total 300 kWp.

The recently published update to Malta’s Minimum Energy Performance requirements: Technical Document F, as at 1st July 2024, sets a minimum PED for school buildings of 220kWh/m2.yr.

FTS is proud of having achieved a net zero CO2 emission with an EPC rating of -9 making the new Msida Primary School an A+ building being the first of its kind in the Maltese Islands in terms of educational facilities and buildings. In this regard, the design rating of the new Msida Primary School surpassed the minimum near-zero energy levels for Malta and the new school building is considered as a positive net renewable energy producer.

 

Environmentally friendly measures

In terms of environmentally friendly measures, the new school was constructed through the adoption of several eco-friendly actions, namely:

(i) Walls and roofs insulation – the building fabric is kept cool in the hotter months and warm in the winter thereby minimizing the need to run heating and cooling units regularly;

(ii) Recycling of rainwater – rainwater is collected in specifically built wells and connected for landscape irrigation use and for flushings of sanitary facilities; and

(iii) Water Saving Fixtures – water wastage is substantially reduced through the installation of specific water fixtures for the reduction of flow of sanitary facilities flushing and low-flow, and high-efficiency faucet aerators which lower water usage by approximately 4%.