and ties, our experts used tried-and-tested printed 500mm cover strips with heavy duty Velcro so that the install almost looks like one seamless wrap. “Another consideration on the complex front elevation was the need to precisely accommodate 49 external lights. Each light fitting measured 2m wide by 500mm high and needed to remain in-situ, protruding smartly through the printed wraps. Embrace accommodated these with a series of perfectly placed envelope-style slits with eyelets created in advance in the factory. “Once the wrap was guided over the light fittings during installation the slits were secured back with cable ties.” Bringing History To Life Next, another UK specialist company in this market is MacroArt, which has worked on iconic buildings such as Wembley Stadium. Earlier this year, the company took on a job at Blenheim Palace, the birthplace and ancestral home of Sir Winston Churchill, and a venue MacroArt has worked with on a number of major applications. The project, the largest of the partnership to date, involved a 280sq m mural installation to cover essential repairs being made to the Flagstaff Tower. The wrap’s design featured an amalgamation of art created by 30 budding artists from across Oxford, aged between eight and 25. The design was created as part of Blenheim’s partnership with local charity Oxfordshire Youth. The finished mural combined drawings, digital imagery, and text such as poetry, with MacroArt bringing ◄ MacroArt’s 280sq m mural installation at Blenheim Palace was created to cover repair work on Flagstaff Tower Games. This involved creating a largescale, 4,000sq m printed building wrap on the SBQ Building Smallbrook Queensway, a Grade B locally listed, six-storey 1960s brutalist property that is 230m long. The wrap was produced to cover renovation work taking place at the building ahead of the Games to cover up unsightly construction work, while at the same time promoting the city’s status as the host of the Games. The piece was printed on Embrace’s Durst 512R Plus 5m-wide inkjet printer, which prints up to 1200 dpi, using Ollinks ink. The wrap was created using Mesh PVC SeeMee Supreme B3124 and materials were welded together using a Forsstrom 8-TDW. Such was the success of the project The IKEA building wrap covered an area equivalent of 44 doubledecker buses 44 54 www.signlink.co.uk Issue 249 - October / November 2023 that Embrace won the Gold Award in the Construction Category at the UK Graphics Awards in 2022. “Due to the scale of the largest printed wrap, it was not practical to use one giant banner, so we accurately split the install into seven smaller banners, each one measuring around 427sq m,” Forster explains. “To mask the vertical perimeter detail We are especially delighted that the FRAKTA bag and handle really pops out and will get the conversation going both on and offline ▲ Embrace’s IKEA building wrap was installed at London’s busy Oxford Circus Blenheim Palace, which MacroArt produced a mural for and one of England’s largest houses, was built between 1705 and 1722 Factoid TASTE FOR SUCCESS / BUILDING WRAPS
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