The Peckham Experiment
Bartlett 2012 - 2013
In 1926 two pioneering doctors, George Scott Williamson and Innes Hope Pearse created a radical project in South London and opened the Pioneer Health Centre. This was not a medical practice as we understand it today but a revolutionary approach to health and wellbeing. Although the centre closed in 1950 their ideas have had an underlying influence on contemporary thinking. Medical practice today is responsive and is designed to attend specific ailments, what it does not address is why those ailments occur in the first place. With the introduction of the NHS in 1949 the emphasis was to provide facilities and resources that treated illness, the Peckham Experiment focused on the opposite questions which were what is it that keeps people well. It is only fairly recently that the medical and political community have begun to recognize just how far sighted this scheme was.
This year Unit Six is interested in radical ideas for wellbeing at the beginning of the 21st century. The questions must address what you see as the common problems of lifestyle, what level of information do we need and how do we deliver it. In an increasingly digitized world there is now a greater need for social interaction. What are the alternatives to contemporary medical intervention and can you find some curious and relevant practice from history? This programme is not to design a health centre but to think of ways in which your ideas can be as radical and pioneering as Williamson and Pearse were at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Tutors: Christine Hawley and Paolo Zaide
Student Work:
End of Year Show:
