Airea is your personalised directory of all the happenings in your neighbourhood. From business events to volunteering to community events, Airea helps you engage with your local neighbourhood. At the same time, Airea breaks addresses the challenges businesses and community organisation face when trying to reach out to those that are most likely to be repeat customers, users or participants: those living within the business’ local area.
Brando Guerreri
Hey! I’m a Service Designer and Design Researcher with experience that ranges from global innovation projects for the world’s largest companies to speculative design projects for London’s playgrounds. I love tackling large, industry (re)defining projects just as much as breaking down aspects of service delivery to their smallest components and interactions.
Over the course of the past two years I've grown immensely as a designer and had the opportunity to work with organisations such as Borough Market - The UK's oldest food market, The Big Issue - the most widely circulate street paper, and LondonPlay - a charity ensuring children have the space, time and freedom to play.
Education
- MA Service Design | Royal College of Art
- BSc (Hons) Business Management | Queen Mary, University of London
Core Curriculum
- Service Design Foundations
- Advanced Methods & Materials
- Designing Businesses
- Managing Design & Operational Strategy
- Social Innovation & Future Services
- Implementing & Deploying Services at Scale
- Dissertation: Critical Historial Studies
Context
We are living in a loneliness epidemic. 49% of Brits say they are lonely at least some of the time, with the figure jumping to 56% for those aged 30-49. While the mental health consequences of poor or inadequate socialisation are well known (depression, personality disorders, confusion,…) the effects on physical health are just as worrying: a 29% increase in risk of heart disease, a 32% increase in risk of stroke, and a 50% increase in chance of developing dementia.
As both the NHS Long Term Plan and the US Surgeon General’s plan is to transition care from medical facilities and into communities, we need to address the growing fractures and disconnect between citizen and neighbourhood if communities are to have any chance at success.
Key Insights:
- Reactive systems: While important steps have been taken to address the health consequences related to loneliness, they are still limited in scope and reactive in nature.
- Soft Loneliness: Admitting to feeling lonely can be an extremely difficult thing to do. Many are currently experience “soft” loneliness, a state where they are experiencing the negative effects of loneliness but without admitting to it. They do not seek out services or people that are there to support them as they believe the loneliness they experience is neither unique or deserving of particular attention. This state of being is enabled by a series of social proxies (eg. social media, modern entertainment) that satiate our desire for socialisation but do not nourish our wellbeing.
- Hard to find, hard to serve: 71% of survey respondents reported that not knowing what was going on in their local area was the #1reason they did not engage with local activities. At the same time, businesses struggle to reach out to those living in the surrounding area, often being outbid by larger companies for the limited ad space.
Introducing Airea
At the top layer, Airea is your personalised digital directory of local happenings. From business events to volunteering to community events, Airea helps you engage with your local neighbourhood. At the same time, Airea breaks down the challenges businesses and community organisation face in reaching out to those that are most likely to be repeat customers or users: those living within the business’ local area.
At a deeper layer, Airea is a measurement and attribution tool. We know metrics like step count, VO2 max, mile pace, and muscles mass as the languages of physical health. By combining qualitative assessments based on proven medical screeners with network science approaches to mapping networks, we are taking the first step in establishing a common language around social health.