Embrace printed scaffold banner wraps the former Topshop site
Embrace Building Wraps has just completed an iconic printed scaffold banner installation at Oxford Circus for their client IKEA. The printed wrap, which covers scaffolding during works to transform the former Topshop location, features a design that includes a giant-scale representation of the legendary IKEA FRAKTA bag, complete with dangling handles.
Whilst works are carried out on the building’s façade the scaffold banner is being used as a media opportunity to raise awareness of the store opening, due by the autumn next year. The project has taken seven months from inception, with initial conversations with the client’s agencies Mother London & HELO back in February 2023.
The installation comprises of six fully-engineered offset frames to carry the wraps provided by Embrace. Five of these carry a silhouette line drawing of the building itself, complete with the highly recognisable Westminster City Council street nameplates in their original positions. The final banner section replicates the giant iconic blue FRAKTA bag with three dimensional handles.
The project required 1,000 linear metres of scaffold tubes for the offset frames and uprights, and 2,400 square metres of printed PVC-free scaffold wraps – an area equivalent of 44 double-decker buses. The largest of the six seamlessly joined wraps is the FRAKTA bag, measuring 662 m2 alone. Its enormous handles measure up to 32 metres long and 1.8m wide.
It is estimated that approximately over 1.3 million vehicles pass the area each month, before even consider that around 121,000 pedestrians enter the neighbouring Oxford Circus station every day.
Greg Forster, Managing Director at Embrace Wraps said:
Working at such an iconic location for IKEA has been a blast. Once again, we have been appointed to deliver a spectacular installation. We provided our full project management service from creative design for the building silhouette design, on site co-ordination with the main contractor McLaren to the print and install, working closely with the scaffolding contractor TRAD. We are especially delighted that the FRAKTA bag & handle pop out will really get the conversation going both on and offline.
Embrace Building Wraps have funded the planting of 2,878 trees into our global forest to match the area of the printed wraps and handles with Certified B Corp partners at Ecologi, and at the cessation of the display plans have been made for repurposing of the printed wraps. That will be a follow up story down the line. Big thanks to the Embrace Building Wraps collaborative that made this possible, great work team and thank you.
For more details include a photo gallery video take a look at our IKEA Oxford Circus building wrap case study page.
