The Pioneer Centre was purpose-built for what became known as ‘The Peckham Experiment’. Two doctors, George Scott Williamson and Innes Hope Pearse chose Peckham because the “populace roughly represents a cross-section of the total populace of the nation with as widely differing a cultural admixture as it is possible to find in any circumscribed metropolitan area”. The doctors believed that medical practice was overly focused on curing disease, rather than on cultivating good health and preventing illness. Instead, they believed that given the right tools, people would take responsibility for their own well-being.

The experiment began in 1926, using a house on Queen’s Road SE5 as its base. For the new Pioneer Centre, Sir Owen Williams devised large open spaces to allow the Centre’s doctors to properly observe the members. Williams was formally trained as an engineer and is best known for his design of the Express Building in Manchester, along with forward-thinking designs for Britain’s motorways including ‘Spaghetti Junction’. Using concrete and steel allowed the architect to realise ambitious shapes that housed a gymnasium, lecture hall and rest and recreation rooms. At the centre of the building is the swimming pool, whose glazed roof allows in as much natural light as possible, along with windows that could be fully opened to circulate fresh air into the building. Cork floors encouraged people to walk barefoot.

The doctors paid members one shilling a week, and they had access to organised activities, games and workshops as well as yearly medical examinations to keep track of progress. Central to the Pioneer Centre’s philosophy was the belief that left to themselves people would begin to organise in a creative way, which indeed happened. The centre closed in 1950 despite public support, as its innovative approach did not fit with the tenets of the newly formed NHS. However, its ideals inspired further projects in the field of social biology.