Olympic Games planners should not be scared of “flying in the face” of beautiful architecture and using existing or temporary infrastructure, says the incoming chairman of global engineering group Arup as Queensland reviews its 2032 Olympic venues.

“The temptation is to design for very large crowd numbers and in doing so, you create these very, very big open spaces which in legacy post-games actually lack character,” said Jerome Frost, who was head of design and regeneration for the UK’s Olympic Delivery Authority ahead of the London 2012 Games.