Recently I found out when visiting the exhibition stand of the company that produces the custom wallpaper for The Block, what material they use.
It is self-adhesive vinyl. I was amazed that the company who provides the wallcoverings for the block has no paper based product to offer. In my opinion - after 14 years doing custom printed wallpaper - on residential walls one should only use paper based wallpaper and not a vinyl wall film.
All vinyl wall films seals the wall and there is no breathing. Vinyl wall film might be easy to clean, but in a private home or even in an office, walls usually are treated nicely.
Also the aspect of removal after years on the wall, I know from experience that the modern removable wallpaper materials that are not self-adhesive can be removed without damaging the wall as they are either dry strippable or you just wet the surface and than the dried paste in the back softens and you can pull off the paper without problems.
With self-adhesive vinyl - as used in The Block - you also have to keep an overlap at the joints, which might not be a visual problem if it is on a hoarding wall or on the window of a shop, but in my living room, I would like to have flat joints. Self-adhesive wall films have to have an overlap as the material moves with temperature: when cold it shrinks, when warm it expands. If you had flat joints like with our wallpaper after a trimming cut, you would get on colder days opening gaps with the vinyl wall film.
We have used vinyl self-adhesive wallpaper occasionally, like on the walls of the two NAVY ships or we have used our peel and stick wallpaper PhotoTex for sticking a custom print onto a door. Click here for a photo of the result. Our PhotoTex wallpaper is a finely woven Polyester fabric with a unique adhesive on the back that is truly removable, but sticks on most surfaces very nicely. Teflon based paints though need a material that has a very aggressive adhesive which will pull off the paint when removing it, that is the reason we suggest our standard product, the PRO wallpaper that stays on the wall without problems.