Between April and October 2024, the National Gallery ran a two-stage international competition, designed to attract the widest possible participation of national and international multi-disciplinary design teams. The competition scope recognised the foundational importance of Australia’s First Nations peoples and culture with gardens and contexts of heritage value. The landscape of the Sculpture Garden puts art and public access and appreciation of art first. It also explores the potential of the wider national setting of Kamberri/Canberra.

The competition sought to reposition the Sculpture Garden as an innovative outdoor art gallery that comprehensively embraces the biodiversity of the Australian landscape and the National Gallery’s purpose to make ‘art accessible, meaningful and vital to diverse audiences, locally, nationally and internationally’. The first stage of the competition invited participants to submit concept designs that incorporate public spaces for experiencing arts and culture and called for proposals that responded to the original design intent and heritage values of the garden, designed by Harry Howard and Associates in 1981.