About
POBOX Designs provides architectural metalwork solutions for mid-to-high-end landscape architects, architects, designers and builders — the place where architectural intent becomes built reality. We're an Australian designer, engineer and manufacturer of premium aluminium planter boxes and architectural metalwork, the team that sits between the drawing board and the building site, turning a designer's vision into something a builder can install, first time. We've done it from first sketch to final fix, right across Australia, since 2010.
Our journey
From a Ballarat start-up to a company-owned workshop supplying projects across the country.
Lukas Jess and Carli Stevens start POBOX from home — hand-making steel letterboxes sold at markets and online, alongside firepits, laser-cut screens and homewares. The name says it all: P.O.BOX.
The business moves out of home into its first factory in Delacombe, takes on its first employee and opens a showroom — chasing work right across Victoria, most of it in Melbourne.
POBOX takes on its first projects in New South Wales — the start of an interstate reach that keeps growing today.
A showroom and café in central Ballarat — the Rusty Spud baked-potato bar — puts POBOX metalwork on display in a space we designed, built and ran ourselves.
We sell the Rusty Spud to focus on bigger projects — and deliver our first large-scale job, Knox Grammar School in Wahroonga, NSW.
POBOX purchases its own premises — a 1,750m² company-owned site in Ballarat — backed by continuous investment in fabrication capacity, in a mindset of constant improvement.
We launch our imported range, partnering with a 15,000m² all-in-house factory offshore — so we can match any project, from a single bespoke piece to a full development, all to one POBOX standard. The same year we add Leica ICS 50 digital templating for millimetre-accurate site setout.
Making 1,500+ planters a year from our company-owned 1,750m² site in Ballarat, on projects across Victoria and New South Wales.
Our story
POBOX was founded in Ballarat in 2010 by directors Lukas Jess and Carli Stevens, on a simple belief: the difference between a good project and a great one lives in the custom details — and those details are only ever as good as the team that makes them. Today, from a company-owned 1,750m² site in Ballarat, our team of 20 runs projects across Victoria and New South Wales — much of it in Melbourne's premier suburbs like Toorak, Hawthorn, South Yarra and Brighton — still driven by that same belief.
Most projects lose something in the handover. An architect draws it, a designer refines it, a builder has to make it work on site — and the bespoke pieces are exactly where things get lost in translation. Closing that gap is the reason POBOX exists. We speak all three languages: we read the architect's intent, engineer it so it genuinely performs, draft it for fabrication, and supply it install-ready to the builder's program — guiding the install, with our own crew on specialist work.
Because one team owns the whole journey — design, engineering, manufacture and finishing, supplied install-ready — nothing is reinterpreted or watered down along the way. What's drawn is what gets built, and what gets built fits the first time.
What we make: rooftop gardens, planter boxes, screening & privacy, structures, balustrades, water features and outdoor furniture — residential and commercial. Fully insured (Public Liability, Professional Indemnity & WorkCover). Our material of choice is architectural aluminium, with stainless, brass and other metals on request.
One team, every skill
The reason nothing gets lost between the drawing and the site: every skill needed to realise a design sits under one roof.
We start on your site or in your studio, samples in hand — translating brief, budget and vision into a design that works, practically and aesthetically.
2D drafting and 3D modelling resolve every join, fixing and tolerance before anything is cut — clearer approvals, and no nasty surprises on site.
We engineer designs to comply and perform — barrier loads, wind, structural fixings — working hand in hand with your architect, engineer and certifier.
Survey-grade Leica ICS 50 templating captures the site to the millimetre and sets out our fixing points, so custom and oversize pieces fit first time.
Laser cutting, guillotine shearing, a 135-tonne brake press and pulse MIG & TIG welding — precise, repeatable metalwork at any scale, made to order.
Powdercoated to your colour by trusted local coaters, then delivered install-ready for your trades — with specialist installation by our own crew where a project calls for it, one point of accountability, start to finish.
How we work
Every POBOX planter is designed by our team and held to the same quality standard — made locally or globally to suit your project.
Made in our Ballarat workshop with just-in-time turnaround — the home of oversize and one-off pieces. Why AU made →
Designed by POBOX, custom made & powdercoated to order with rigorous QC. Why imported →
Leica-precise on-site setout, supplied install-ready for your trades — with specialist installation by our own crew where a project calls for it. Our capabilities →
Let's talk
The easiest way to start is an online consultation; for larger-scale projects we can also arrange a site visit with samples. (Our Ballarat workshop is open by appointment.)