Your home is your refuge – a haven that provides safety when nature is at its most extreme. Even when the wind comes from the northeast and freezes the windowsills or when you must continually clear the great wooden patio of snow. In the winter, you see, I use the patio as an extra freezer.

The salmon fishing season is over for this year, the polar night is about to set in. For me, that means a period of calm and writing – a time when I can take a breather before there is snow, the ice is strong and I can go ice fishing.

I am by training an industrial designer. After spending the spring semester of 2008 as an Erasmus exchange student at the ISIA design school in Italy, I understood what fabulous nature we have in Finland. I had missed the birches and pine trees, the lakes and rivers and the sea. In Faenza there was a single fountain, which to me seemed like a prison for water.

The smell of wood always seems safe and familiar. However, my current home, built of wooden planks, is only a first step towards my dream of a log cabin of my own. Ideally, I would build one by the Porsangerfjorden in Norway. I don’t need much, but I want my choices to be sustainable, both in years and aesthetically for the eye. The Kaari wall shelf combined with a working top would make a beautiful contrast to the massive old logs of the walls. I would also have a Mademoiselle chair and a soft woollen blanket. I’d like it to be large enough for me to curl up in to spend time with the treasures of my wilderness library, because reading is a good counterpoint to creativity.

Sustainable natural materials make a home both comfortable and ecological. Wood breathes and over the years it gains a beautiful patina. Also, wood breathes in a way that is different to mechanical ventilation, which needs a mechanical lung.

My thesis work in industrial design for the Design Academy of Kuopio was not a concept, a renewal of a brand or a product, but a study in the analysis of the genetic structure of a product; a study of how product development follows natural selection and evolution, occasionally missteps, then returns to a way that has been proven to work. As part of my study I compared scissors and smartphones – that is, how scissors have kept their shape throughout history, whereas phones have been shaped variously like a banana, a shell, and a gaming console – experiments that did not last.

Rather than scissors, I could equally have chosen Artek products, as their language of form has lasted. The bent L-leg used in Artek furniture is just one example of an invention that has been found good and lasting, something that still carries its weight.

I probably don’t need to say that my thesis was unlike others – in fact, it stepped out of line so much that there was initially some resistance to the idea. However, I weathered the storm and received the best possible grade. Writing has always come naturally to me, as has the study of details, particularly those of nature. Today, I live what I have learned and made the most of the opportunities provided by the choices I have made as a content strategist, nature photographer and writer. Design can therefore be many things and through listening to your heart you too will find your own direction in life.

Even though my path has taken me to northern Norway, it often pops back into Finland – to national parks and places that I document for my work. Nature preservation and a widening appreciation of ancient forests has increased my respect for wood as a material and in my own life I strive to make the most long-lasting choices I can. It is not always easy, but by remaining curious and merciful to oneself, interested in people and in Finnish design and the opportunities offered by design, there are always options. From time to time, it’s also a good thing to look over your own consumer habits.

My waders will have to wait by the door till spring. Until then, I will put on my thick winter boots, make day trips to the mountains and go ice fishing for red-bellied arctic charr and beautiful silvery trout, but only take as much as I need to eat. Potatoes from my own potato patch go well with smoked fish.

Life offers countless choices, but when you make the right ones, their magic carries you across the years.

Text and photos: Marinella Himari

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