The site was given to the city in the 1980s as part of a deal that allowed the Bay Adelaide Centre to be higher than official plan limits.

[citation needed] The developers thus gave a small portion of the lot to the city and spent $5 million to build a park.

The western part of the park includes a network of pathways and is edged by cluster of trees around a semicircular lawn.

[citation needed] The namesake feature of the Gardens is a small greenhouse set to the cool and moist conditions of a cloud rainforest.

Cloud Gardens won Baird Sampson Architects a Governor General's Architecture Award.