One company name in-particular stands out from the crowd of construction site hoardings this year: Schiavello. We caught up with SA Director of Schiavello, Steve Lockwood at the company's Christmas show to discuss the year that's been and what lies ahead.

Looking at Adelaide today it’s a very different scene compared to a few years ago. No longer is it just a lonely cluster of cranes over the new hospital site but, jutting out at various intervals, more and more cranes are straddling the city’s skyline than ever before.

Here at CityMag we pay close attention to the cranes in the sky and take heart at the downtown development currently underway. Of course not every project adds something good to our skyline or something positive to our street scape. One construction company, however, that does seem to put their hoardings up across some of our favourite projects is Schiavello.

From left: Steve Lockwood, Daniel Gannon, Sally Burridge and Keith Dougal

Steve Lockwood is a director with Schiavello and currently manages the Australian-owned company in South Australia. We pulled Steve aside at the company Christmas party for a quick chat about the year that’s been and to get a forecast for the year to come.

From an outsider perspective, looking at the cranes and build-sites up around Adelaide there’s been more than a few Schiavello branded hoardings about the place. Would you like to run through a quick list of the projects the team here in SA has supervised and completed?

Schiavello Systems
ORIGIN Building on 100 Waymouth (870 seats and systems joinery)
North Eastern Mental Health Centre
Adelaide City Council (continual works)
Department of Human Services in Port Augusta
– Along with multiple other projects within the city.

Schiavello Constructions
Electra House – c$10million
Mayfair Hotel (internal works / refurbishment) – c$5million
Adelaide Railway Station (building upgrade)
SKYCITY Adelaide Casino project (continual works) – c$23million
-Inclusive of Sean’s Kitchen.

You’ve divided up your list into “Schiavello Systems” and “Schiavello Construction”, can you explain a little bit about the difference between the two? As we understand it, the business recently formalised the divide.

Schiavello (SA) Pty. Ltd. formally split into two distinctively different companies at the start of the financial year. Schiavello Constructions (SA) Pty. Ltd. and Schiavello Systems (SA) Pty. Ltd.. This has been a national initiative for Schiavello as the group continues to refine it’s operations. The primary drivers for this move has been the desire to set up various operational boards that then drive the national operation of each discipline and in turn report to a group board. This allows each operational discipline to concentrate specifically on the issues that provide continuous improvement and refinement for each business stream.

This year, we’re celebrating with you in one of your amazing builds – Sean’s Kitchen. As beautiful as this location is – it’s very much pared back from previous years.  What was the real driving purpose to change the location from your building’s rooftop to Sean’s Kitchen?

Schiavello Christmas functions have always been regarded as an industry institution for many reasons. As times have changed, we have strived to continue to demonstrate relevance and an understanding of market conditions and industry circumstance. Our rooftop functions in themselves have varied in style and theme, always attempting to reflect the prevailing conditions. The Sean’s Kitchen event this year was simply a continuance of this approach to embrace change and demonstrate a relevance and an understanding of market conditions. Secondly it presented a magnificent opportunity to showcase some of the exceptional work we have been engaged in over the past twelve months.

What does 2015 look like for Schiavello? There’s a busy start to the year with Electra House coming online in February no doubt?

Electra House will provide a very exciting start to the new year for Schiavello. There are numerous other projects Schiavello are actively involved in that will see us very busy for the remainder of the financial year. In both businesses we are heavily committed to bringing about exciting outcomes for our many clients and feel quite excited about the relationships that are filling our project calendars.