Natasa Bajc, director of Urbis Design - From cafe in Strahinjica Bana street to Hilton Hotel in New York

(Natasa Bajc)

She doesn't find it hard to go to business meetings in Boston, London, Belgrade, Milan and Rome, all in four days. Her architectural firm managed magnificent hotel projects from Florida and Hawaii to Japan and Bali. She works up to thirteen hours a day, but she also does her best to devote herself to everything she enjoys doing. Painting and sewing are her creative escapades.

- I immediately embrace all the good things that life brings. I love my job a lot and I do my best not to see it as just work. It is that feeling when I would tell my client: "I would give you money for hiring me to do this" – Natasa Bajc, director of the international design studio Urbis Design with offices in Belgrade and Los Angeles, begins her story for eKapija.

She has over 150 hospitality projects behind her - Disneyland Tokyo, Venetian Las Vegas, Hilton New York... The office in Los Angeles has given her access to all parts of the world, and all this started from the office in Senjak, Belgrade.

Belgrade-Los Angeles-Belgrade

Her first building site was the cafe Ipanema, the first such establishment in Strahinjica Bana street, which later grew into a so-called "Silicon Valley".

(Ipanema)

After completing an internship at the family architectural firm and studies at the University of Belgrade, she decided to go across the Atlantic Ocean with her husband Sasa, also an architect, to look for new experiences.

- In the 1990s I made a decision to go first to Canada and then to Los Angeles. I was admitted to graduate studies at Columbia University, but I was so impressed with that faculty that I did not even dare to ask them for a scholarship. However, I completed my graduate studies in 1999 at SCI-Arc (Southern California Institute of Architecture), where I got a scholarship. I am proud that this school earned the status of the world's best school this year.

During the studies in the USA, she got familiar with the work of local architectural firms and realized that the difference was not only in inches.

(Venetian Hotel, Las Vegas)

- The way of doing business is different, project organization is more solid, division of labor within the team is more clear, while the responsibility of each individual is more serious. I had a chance to work at some interesting firms, one of which is Johanson Fain that is famous for the skyscraper in the Die Hard I movie.

Having completed MA studies, she started teaching at SCI-Arc, and she was also a guest lecturer at Cal Poly Pomona, Columbia, UCLA.

Urbis Design - version 8

And while Natasa Bajc was teaching at the faculty and drawing designs mainly for residential buildings together with her friends, who are now world-famous architects, like Roger Kurath, her husband was working on hotel projects. After obtaining an MA degree, she got a job offer from the architectural firm Carl Ross engaged in hotel interior design.

(Hilton Hotel, New York)

Natasa and Sasa started their own architectural firm in Los Angeles in 1999.

Natasa Bajc says that so far about 500 architects and designers have gained an important experience working at their firm, which is called Urbis Design. In that way, young people had a chance to participate in large international projects at the time when there was no work to do in Belgrade.

Both love and job

As the job of an architect requires spending many hours at work, Natasa Bajc claims that it is good that her husband Sasa and she run a company together.

(Disneyland Hotel, Tokyo)

- We've been often away on business over the last few years, so I really don't know when we would have a chance to see each other if we did not meet at the office. We are quite different, so we complement each other. He is more of a managerial type, with both feet on the ground. In this business, focus is often only on design, but I had to learn how to take care of the budget as well. If I didn't have my husband to take care of the business, things would definitely be much more difficult for me.

Although she works up to 13 hours a day, she underlines that she does not like sacrificing "the real life for the work".

- Our two beautiful children are my greatest achievement. Today everybody talks about life balance, as well as about how many decisions one needs to change to achieve that balance. I deliberately sacrificed a part of my career for my family. When we were deciding whether to focus on B2B services, an important factor was the absence of travels. Top 10 percent of designers in the world travel at least once a week and are usually away for three days, which is a big pressure on the family.

Suzana Obradovic