Sonja Rajić Email & Phone Number

Belgrade, Serbia

Don't mix your job with your emotions doesn't work here.This company is an inheritance from my family.My father Zoran founded GRAD Projekt in 2008. My mom Olga was his biggest support, my sister Duca and I his strongest motivation.Both my sister and I are architects. You'll meet Duca better, I promise.Mom Olga graduated in political sciences, but she was a private entrepreneur since I remember. Olga used to say how she graduated architecture 3 times - first time with my father and 2 more times with my sister and me. We'd all agree on that.Mom was the first who learned how to draw in AutoCAD, all three of us learned from her. Mom doesn't speak a word of English by the way.Not a single summer vacation passed without all 4 of us working together for at least 2 months. I run our company since 2018, when my father passed away.It is beautiful the fact we've expended our borders far away from Prijepolje, the city where GRAD Projekt was founded. Our projects are based mostly in Belgrade, but also in Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand. I am proud. I am looking forward to fly even further.

Stockholm, Stockholm County, Sweden

Answering to Nina's e-mail was one of the best decisions I made in my professional career.In 2019, Nina wrote an e-mail seeking for an architect from Belgrade to help her working on her projects. My friend received it from his friend's friend. I wonder how it even reached me :)After couple of e-mails, we agreed on meeting in Stockholm.Nina is a teaching professor at KTH so we met there. I couldn't be happier, the experience of visiting it was amazing. Our conversation went well so we started collaboration.Working with Nina was a priceless experience for me.Nina learned me:- hours spent in off the work are far more valuable over working hours;- understand the system of billing working hours, not project wise;- estimating the time spent on each project and the cost of spending more hours then estimated;- super fine aesthetics;- your boss can appreciate your time even more then you do it yourself;- being responsible is important and the company you work for notices and appreciates it;- Swedish building regulations.Our collaboration ended with a tendency to be continued.

Belgrade, Serbia

It started with an elective course in the fourth year of study. It ended with me running the company together with 3 owners.Diagonal Plus is a carpentry company that produces furniture. For more than 20 years they produce bespoke furniture and are known for their precision and quality not only in Serbia.Besides the good grade, the award for good furniture design on the elective course I took was making a prototype by Diagonal Plus. After they made a night table I designed, it was selected for a Young Balkan Designers exhibition in 2014 and traveled the Balkans with or without me for several months.I felt so grateful for what they did for me by making this prototype, so I was coming to them with the postcard and the souvenir from every exhibition place I visited.After graduation, I volunteered in Diagonal Plus for 7 months.Starting from 0, I improved a lot and learned so many skills.Working as an architect in carpentry, gave me a behind-the-scenes point of view on the interior design. I learned the architecture of the interior design, how is furniture built, which materials to chose and why, joinery details that make the design better and so much more.I collaborated with great architecture and interior design studios and learned from their work a lot, because I was like a part of their team. With the aim of making their design better.Soon I became a project manager and also made an offers for our clients, did budgeting, procurement communication with architects and subcontractors. I represented our company in front of our foreign clients.Did I mention we built a furniture for a Danish parliament? Yes, we did! The company had 3 owners. All Gemini signs, including myself, we used to make jokes how actually 8 of us is running the company :)

Serbia

All who studied architecture at Belgrade University must have met Professor Ljiljana Đukanović. I was lucky and honored enough to be her teaching assistant during 1 semester.The biggest challenges:- understanding the concept of the students' projects when they are not yet skilled to explain it in a proper way;- guiding students through their projects following their language, not personal aesthetics;- answering to the variety of their questions.Learning from Professor Ljiljana's authority was a priceless experience.

Bucharest, Romania

I was live on a phone call with my mom Olga when I was supposed to choose my internship for the summer 2014. The choice was quite wide, I could easily imagine spending 3 months (or more) in Spain, France, India, Iran or Poland. At the time, Bucharest was the only one offering internship in the architectural office. Other internships were theoretical practices at the faculties, a research work as a part of the ongoing case studies.Sonja (23) wanted to explore India that summer.Olga (53) put the focus on the internship and gaining the experience, suggesting Bucharest.Having trust in mom's opinion is a base for listening to a gut feeling, without a doubt.3 months in Bucharest, with the KXL Architects, was priceless.I learned:- the basics of Revit;- the importance of having an urban planner in the team of architects and the way they make an impact on the design in the architectural projects;- the ways of taking care of the employees' health and wellbeing;- that the daily presence of the boss and short check-up with everyone individually is necessary for making everyone aware of their importance in the company;- that having a personal trainer as an employee in not at all a nonsense;- that playing table tennis 30min in the middle of a working day will make you restart;- that Romania is so diverse and beautiful, and- that time stops when you enter Carturesti library :)Mom was sooo right.After 10 years, many people I met in Bucharest are still part of my life.Flavia visited me twice here in Belgrade.Oxana from Germany is my close friend now.Mohammed from Oman, Bilel from Tunisia, Maria from Croatia, Cecilia, Aga, Arwa, Nadia... I could write stories about each of them.What I learned from mom back then is to understand the point of the experience I am about to go through and act according to that.Even now, that is the priority in every choice I am about to make.

Master’S Degree, Architecture

Bachelor’S Degree, Architecture

High School