David Salmela's buildings, the ones located in woods, are designed to interact with the trees surrounding them. Trees, by the way, that are not cut down unless absolutely necessary.

"The key is to fit the building into the site so that you aren't altering the natural environment," Salmela said in an interview prior to a gallery talk Thursday at the Finnish American Heritage Center.

As the buildings grow out of their environment, so do Salmela's buildings grow out of the culture and people of the northwoods. Salmela is a self-taught architect, though that's not something he brags about. "It isn't anything heroic on my part," Salmela said.

But his self-education perhaps afforded him the ability to develop his style more directly from the surroundings and the people he grew up around.