"Here is a modern building designed as a laboratory for the study of human biology. The general visibility and continuity of flow throughout the building is a necessity for the scientist. In the biological laboratories of botany and zoology the microscope has been the main and requisite equipment. The human biologist also requires special 'sight' for his field of observation - the family. His new 'lens' is the transparency of all boundaries within his field of experiment. Sixteen steps down from the consulting room and he is engulfed in the action that is going forward, and which, by reason of the very design of the building, is visible and tangible to his observational faculties at all times….. The whole building is in fact characterised by a design which invites social contact, allowing equally for the chance meeting, for formal and festive occasions as well as for quiet familiar grouping. It is a field for acquaintanceship and for the development of friendships, and for the entertainment by the family of visiting friends and relations. In these times of disintegrated social and family life in our villages, towns, and still worse in cities, there is no longer any place like this. Nevertheless, man has a long history of such spaces that have met the needs of his social life and this tentative adventure of his children as they grew up: - the church, the forum, the market-place, the village green, the courtyard; comfortable protected spaces where every form of fruitful social activity could lodge itself.

The Centre is just such a space, not modelled on the past, not traditional, but planned to meet certain biological necessities only now beginning to be understood. It is an open forum, with its recesses roofed and warmed in winter, yet open to the sunshine when ot comes; a place where at all times any member of the family can drop in alone for an hour, or foregather for a party with equal ease and suitability - not a lounge for casual contacts, but an arena for the unfolding of the consecutive and integrated leisure activity of families.

The plan is based upon the principles of biological cultivation. Action in the building is not to result from any professional leadership, but to arise spontaneously out of the circumstances of the environment freely impinging upon the families as they use it. So all activities, sequestered though they may be because of their intrinsic nature - e.g. the swimming pool, the gymnasium - are at the same time visible to all who use the building for any purpose. The swimming pool illustrates admirably this dual necessity in construction. It is an enclosed chamber, the temperature and humidity of which can be controlled, but through its encircling band of glass it is visible to the occupants of the rest of the building, and it is sight of action going forward in the water that will constitute the familiarising factor stirring the spectator to new achievement and drawing non-swimmers to the attempt. So with the nurseries, the dance floor, cafeteria, theatre, library, workrooms, etc, etc.; all are planned to come within the vision of families and observers alike as they use the building."

Taken from "The Peckham Experiment" see publications by Innes Pearse see founders and Lucy Crocker

"Certain essential but unusual features of the construction of the three-storied building must be emphasised. It was deliberately planned to allow freedom of access everywhere for the whole family. There were no linked doors, no rooms shut up and kept for special purposes. Parents, children, adolescents and grownups, all were able to move throughout it at will as in fact they would do in their own homes. Closely associated with this freedom of circulation, its plan made special provision for visibility of all that was going on in all directions and at all times.

The building was designed for every family to be in a position to gain knowledge and know-how from the sight of and easy contact with others - often less competent than they - doing or attempting to do all sorts of things. Such visibility of all action and the freedom of access for both children and adults to all parts of the building invoked in the parents and adults a shared interest and knowledge of the children's growth and prowess. Thus progressive diversity not only in action but also in outlook freely entered into the environment, so adding to the possible quality of living for all involved. New incentive followed this continuous seeping of new-found knowledge from individual to individual, and from family to family."

'Is health a suitable study for academic consideration? see publications A lecture delivered in the University of St Andrews on 19 May 1971 by Innes H Pearse. see founders