The National Gallery building is surrounded by approximately three hectares of expansive outdoor space allowing for a diverse display of sculpture and an array of landscape features. Comprised of the Sculpture Garden, the area that lies between the National Gallery and the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, and the Australian Garden, featuring James Turrell’s Within Without 2010 skypace to the south, the grounds were configured to exhibit the Gallery's extensive collection of sculpture.

Designed by Harry Howard and Associates and James Mollison, the Gallery's first Director, to complement the building, several water features require substantial maintenance. These waters feature include the Fiona Hall Fern Garden water feature, the Marsh Pond, the Floating Figure water feature and the water features in and surrounding the Turrell.

Many of these external water features have original pumps, are not connected to the BMS and are overrun by flora and fauna that were not intended to be there. The intent of this project is to return the four water features to the original design and state of good repair.

The water features are inefficient and costly to operate due to broken infrastructure and leaks.

They are a significant source of water loss through uncontrolled leak, and also require ongoing manual cleaning as the pump and filtration infrastructure is compromised or non-operational.