Overview
It is another case of a private house that we will introduce this week, the Wrap House. What sets it apart from the previous 18.36.54 House is that it is not a brand-new house built from ground zero. Instead, the Wrap House is a remodeled 1960S house clad with shimmering stainless steel coils as its façade. Now let us explore the Wrap House together.
The Wrap House
The Wrap House is a remodeled house completed in 2014 and awarded the Architects Journal Retrofit Awards 2014. The house is located in Godalming, Surrey, the South East of England, UK.
Surrounded by gardens and lawns, the Wrap House occupies 4890-square-feet living space of the 2.5-acre natural landscape. The house features two levels, with seven bedrooms (four of which with en-suite bathrooms), a family bathroom, a utility room and wine cellar on the first floor and a living room (with en-suite bathroom) on the second level.
The Problems Before the Wrap House
The Wrap House, initially designed in the 1960S, had undergone several rounds of renovations with distinct levels of expertise at different times over its history (Archinect Firms 2025). Over time it turned into a building of disjointed appearance with problems presented as below,
• The building was cold and prone to leaks.
• Its conservatory was dysfunctional – hot in summer while freezing in winter.
• The space setting was incoherent and obtrusive in the natural landscape, which not only incurred inconvenience, but also wasted the view of the stunning landscape which could otherwise be enjoyed from inside the house. Take the bedroom wing for instance, it was presented a blank wall to the garden.
The Solution Shifted from REPAIR to REDESIGN
The original proposal was a simple repair package which included re-zincing the leaky roof and rebuilding the abnormal conservatory. However, after calculating the cost, the British architect Jake Edgley of Edgley Design (the famous architecture firm) came up with a better upgrading solution, which included pulling down the dysfunctional conservatory and using the same funds to redesign the existing building.
A conventional approach to re-design is always associated with demolishing plus rebuilding. Jake Edgley instead wanted a more sustainable approach of upcycling the structure. It involved mainly two tasks.
• Retaining the original silhouette of the house, cladding it in insulation and then wrapping it in stainless steel. In this way, the two issues disappeared with only one issue of space setting to resolve.
• Rearranging the interior space to capitalize on the garden views. This encompassed a spacious entrance hall, open kitchen and reception area with floor-to-ceiling windows. The master bedroom was also impressed with beautiful garden views.
316L Stainless Steel Coils Applied into the Wrap House
Stainless steel was largely used on the exterior of the house as the main facade, contrasted with the dark zinc fascias to blend in its natural surroundings seamlessly. It was designed to generate abstracted reflections of the changing natural surroundings and the sky in a dynamic way, presenting a colorful shimmering envelop.
316L stainless steel was selected for its durability and recyclability, echoing with Jake Edgley’s sustainable design philosophy. The stainless steel forms, produced in 0.5mm thickness, were designed to make the best use of standard coil width. These stainless steel coils were polished into reflective finish featuring an oil-canning effect so that it could avoid mirror-like reflections meanwhile create abstract reflections of the landscape and sky.
Stainless Steel at CIVMATS China
Whether you are in the market for stainless steel coils in standard width as in the case of the Wrap House, or non-standard width for your specific project requirement, we CIVMATS can customize stainless steel solutions tailored for you specifically in a reliable way.
CIVMATS has been producing stainless steel materials since 1989, with its international sales department set up as early as in 2016. We have proudly exported worldwide our quality stainless steel coil strip sheet plates, stainless steel tube pipes, stainless steel bars (round, angle, flat, square, hex, channel) and stainless steel wires & ropes for nearly a decade. Choose CIVMATS, choose reliability! CIVMATS aspire to be your top stainless steel choice in China.
