How to Keep a Fresh and Tidy Home, According to a Trailblazing Vacuum Designer

Joseph Guerra is no stranger to award-winning design. The industrial designer and founder of Guerra Office has produced highly lauded work with clients around the world—from Fortune 100 companies to heritage furniture, lighting, and electronics brands. As the founder of the newly launched start-up, Airsign, Guerra is setting his sights on the next generation of home appliances—and his first offering, a HEPA vacuum cleaner, aims to be the most sustainable product of its kind on the market.

"For a clean house, I highly recommend a vacuum cleaner that purifies and filters your floors, as well as your air," he says. "A vacuum cleaner that looks great is a bonus, too." We recently chatted with Guerra about this pioneering product—and the others he counts on at home.

"For organization, I recommend Bent boxes, which my team and I designed for Normann Copenhagen. Featuring soft colors, they are simple and charming and perfect catchalls for everyday use. Made of bentwood like the name implies, the boxes feature clever stackability for optimal organization."

"I’m a big collector of magazines, and I found that most magazine racks didn’t really do it for me. The Kartell magazine rack has an amazing character and energy to it, brimming with Italian postmodern optimism. Plus, it also holds a lot of large-format mags."

"I organize our bath products in these Japanese buckets. They keep things tidy and slightly concealed, because I’m not a huge fan of seeing product labels. Wood in the bathroom is always a nice touch. Also, these buckets are traditionally used to actually hold water and bathe with—I’d recommend that too!"

"The Dims Barbican trolley is another product we designed. It’s a multifunctional bar cart and storage system. It helps keep my items neat and well organized with its two storage tiers, and its tapered shape suits objects of different heights. The wheels make it easy to move around the room when I switch tables and work surfaces, and the handle makes it simple to tuck it under a desk and pull it out when needed."

"We use wooden magnetic knife racks to hold our knives and other steel cooking utensils. They mount to the kitchen wall seamlessly, and nicely display our Japanese knives (and more). They’re super useful while cooking, and they help us store these tools conveniently."

"We designed the Cleancult container system to be a modular, scalable set of refillable cleaning items. The jars are shatterproof glass with silicone lids. You can put laundry/dishwasher tablets inside, or store whatever else suits you. The pump and sprayer designs are great for Cleancult soaps and surface cleaners, but can also be filled with any other cleaning liquid, such as vinegar and water solutions. Also, its triangular shapes allow for easy nesting once stacked together, as well as seamless alignment with the back of your countertop."

"The best organizational system I could ever recommend is the Vitsoe 606 Universal shelving system designed by Dieter Rams. Simple, modular, and incredibly customizable, the system clads an entire wall in our studio. I use the shelves to hold our product models, prototypes, and books. We’ve also used the shelves to create a mini closet, a kitchenette, and a desk."

"For a clean house, I highly recommend a vacuum cleaner that purifies and filters your floors, as well as your air. A vacuum cleaner that looks great is an additional bonus, too. My company, Airsign, represents the next new generation of aesthetically pleasing and well-designed home appliances built with user experience in mind. We just launched a HEPA filter vacuum cleaner made of 20% recycled plastic, and its biodegradable bags mean it leaves no waste behind."

"I found a very special rug that’s super soft and has a large woven wool texture. Wool is the most forgiving and easiest fiber to clean and maintain. I find it helps mute sound in my apartment, and—of course—vacuum it often to keep it white. Wool doesn’t attract lint, so vacuum cleaning is easier on this rug."

"I also love the Min table from Design Within Reach, which we use as a dining table. It’s a centerpiece in our home where we love to entertain—and sometimes a desk when I work from home. Its multifunctionality helps keep me organized while serving as an anchor in our house."

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