Broadwater Park was developed in 1982-1984 as offices and a distribution warehouse for the National Water Council. The architectural firm was Elsom Pack Roberts, and the landscape design was by Preben (Ben) Jakobsen.
Jakobsen (1934-2012) was born in Denmark, where his parents ran a nursery. He studied horticulture in Denmark from 1949-1953, then at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew in 1955-1956, before gaining a Diploma in Landscape Architecture from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen. He returned to England in 1961, and worked for Eric Lyons on Span housing, until the firm went bust in 1969. Span’s housing was often relatively high density, especially by the standards of private developments in suburban areas, and thick planting was introduced to increase the flats’ privacy, to screen car parking and create a sense of place. Jakobsen made important features of clipped hedgerows and evergreen shrubs, elements that reappeared in profusion in his subsequent work. He contributed the landscaping on schemes at South Row, Blackheath (1963), Highsett, Cambridge (phases 2 and 3, 1963-1965), The Lane, Blackheath (1964), Templemere, Weybridge (1965), Holme Chase, Weybridge (1966) and at New Ash Green (1969).
In 1969 Jakobsen set up his own landscape practice in partnership with his wife Margaret (Maggi), herself a qualified architect. This combined their exceptional knowledge of plants with bold architectural shapes and an enthusiasm for earth moving. Their early independent work included Greenleys, a Milton Keynes mixed-use housing development (1973-1976); Michael Fields Housing, Forest Row, East Sussex (1970-1977), which received a BALI Award in 1979; and the Chalton Street Open Space, Camden (1971-1973). At the University of Strathclyde a number of projects were undertaken between 1971 and 1976; only the Boulder and Rill garden is extant, and is significant as a precursor to the Hounslow Civic Centre (landscape now destroyed) 1973-1977, regarded as his masterwork.
Jakobsen’s maturity as a designer coincided with the wave of new office building in suburban sites for the commercial and public sectors in the 1980s. Such developments offered professional landscape architects new opportunities in dealing with car parking and creating corporate identities, as well as providing attractive places for office workers to have their lunch – an important consideration in suburban or rural locations where there were no High Street amenities.
Jakobsen worked extensively for Elsom Pack Roberts. The relationship began with William (Bill) Pack, who had worked for Lyons in the 1950s. Pack was on the council of the Garden History Society and already aware of Jakobsen’s growing reputation. Cecil Elsom (1912-2006) had formed his own practice after the Second World War, based largely on commercial work for Max Rayne, the Crown Estate and Church Commissioners. In the 1970s he awarded partnerships to two of his assistants, Bill Pack and Alan Roberts; the practice continues today as EPR.
Prior to the construction of Broadwater Park, the site was part of the Denham Film Studios, built for Alexander Korda by Gropius and Fry in the 1930s. Only the principal studio building survives to the north of Broadwater Park, and the southern part of the site was redeveloped by Elsom Pack Roberts. Jakobsen was appointed to the project at its outset in 1980, enabling him to write his own landscape brief and design the earthworks as well as the actual planting. He was also involved in the decontamination of the site and works to the existing trees by the river (sensitive because of the SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) opposite), for which he produced a conservation management plan. He also had a hand in simplifying the outline of the office building before he produced proposals in August 1981 that formed the basis of the scheme.
Jakobsen used the spoil from the previous buildings on the site to produce an extensive terrace for the great lawn, with an embankment shielding the secondary car park to the south and a gentle slope towards the river to the east. The design comprises car parking to the front (west) and behind the entrance drive to the south. The main landscape is due east of the offices, where a great terrace is laid to grass, edged by a circular hedge that directs views through a gap across the river. This feature was there in his first design, although the other sections reached their simple symmetry only later. The river bank is more naturally treated and includes some earlier trees. On the south side of the lawn is the secondary car park, on the north side a concealed ‘secret garden’ and gravel walk. Jakobsen incorporated drainage and service ducts into his design and planted 2,000 trees of 33 different species, both native and exotic, and 40,000 shurbs and perennials. The contractors were Frosts, with whom Jakobsen had worked at Hounslow and at The Rookery at Westmill in Hertfordshire.
Jakobsen became an acclaimed specialist in commercial landscape design. His office schemes include the Olivetti training centre (buildings Grade II and II*) at Branksome, Haslemere, Surrey (1970-1971, with Edward Cullinan Architects), offices for the British Telecom Angel Centre, Islington, (1982-1985, with Elsom Pack and Partners, destroyed), West Gate One, Ealing (1982); BDF Tesa, Blakelands, Milton Keynes (1982-1983, with MK Development Corporation, extant); Sun Life of Canada, Basingstoke (1984-1986); and Canary Wharf (1996). He worked extensively for the prison service, producing landscapes for HMP Parkhurst in 1969, and also on hospitals, including Horsham Hospital in 1974 and Redhill General Hospital in 1976-1980. A connection with Colin Stansfield Smith, chief architect to Hampshire County Council, began in 1983 when he landscaped the rebuilt Farnborough College of Technology (1983-1988), followed by work at Alton Tertiary College in 1987-1994 and West Totton First School and local centre in 1987-1990. Jakobsen’s career was cut short by Alzheimer’s disease in 1997, though not before he had become the fourth landscape architect to win the Landscape Institute’s venerated LI Medal. The award was followed in 1996 by an exhibition at the Building Design Centre ‘Preben Jakobsen: A New Expression in Landscape Architecture and Garden Design’.