Protocol ‘could stop small architects winning more Olympic work until 2024’

One of the original Olympic masterplanners has warned that the government’s attempts to promote British design and ingenuity to a global audience are being hampered by “silly rules largely written to sell hamburgers and T-shirts”.

Jason Prior, chief executive of planning and design at Aecom, added his voice to the growing clamour for Olympic marketing restrictions to be relaxed.

He said there was a danger that 2024 would be the next Olympics at which smaller practices would stand a chance of winning projects because work on Rio was already underway - by Aecom - and the 2020 candidate cities’ bids are also well advanced.

“For many smaller firms, not being able to promote their work undoubtedly makes it harder to win opportunities because you can’t talk about your projects in the time-honoured way we do in the architectural world,” he said.

“This industry is driven by the immediacy of your accomplishments. We are in a zeitgeist of design but the shelf-life is limited. We need to be very careful that with the ambitions of government to promote us on the world stage we are not hampering that with silly rules largely written to sell hamburgers and T-shirts.”

Every architect working on the Games - bar Populous and Atkins which are official sponsors - had to sign Locog’s “No Marketing Rights Protocol for suppliers, consultants and contractors” when they were hired.

These allow practices to use their Olympic work when bidding for other work, but not to do anything which could jeopardise the value of official Olympic brands whose sponsorship is bankrolling the Games.

This includes issuing press releases, doing interviews and running promotional or marketing campaigns.

Prior, who is credited with helping London’s successful Olympic bid, said he “couldn’t be happier” with how the Olympic Park had turned out.

He also encouraged architects to take every opportunity to network with potential international clients while they are in London for the Games.

“It’s a huge opportunity,” he said. “There’s no doubt everything we have achieved on the Olympics is a stunning showcase for high-quality super-scale projects. To be able to show that off to so many hugely influential people is a huge opportunity.

“There are hundreds of similarly super-scale projects going on around the world at the moment but you have to be clear about what you have to offer.

“You have to be quite strategic in your thinking and quite tactical in how you apply it.”