Going Out, Staying In With Dan Pope 

Back in London, after a “much more fun” master’s course, also at the Bartlett, and while working at THISS Studio, something clicked again. This time it was prompted by a friend who needed help turning a pop-up lesbian bar into a permanent bricks-and-mortar space. “I said that I’d do anything to be involved,” Dan recalls. His architectural training, his newly found community and his belief in the importance of nightlife spaces came together in one project. “In collaboration with WET Studio, we made La Camionera over three months with predominantly queer, trans and female tradespeople. It was such a rewarding experience, with a real DIY spirit. I just knew after doing it I wanted more and more,” he says.

And more he got. Leaving THISS Studio to set up Studio Popelo a year and a half ago, Dan has since landed the renovation of two pubs, one in New Cross and one in Canonbury, as well as a new ballet-themed bar in Dalston, combining raw natural materials, mirrors, bespoke metalwork and an infinite screen installation. At the pubs, there will be stained glass panels showing “vivacious characters gorging on food and drink items from the menu.” As he goes into more detail about his plans for “mosaics, tons of artwork, crazy patterns, loads of different materials coming together,” it becomes clear that what he has in mind is far removed from the heritage paint colours, studded leather banquettes and exposed brick of the standard pub-refurbishment playbook. “The narrative is that pubs are closing down, hospitality is on its knees. It is, but there’s also a really exciting undercurrent of new places with a very different attitude. We’re bringing beautiful buildings back to life with a design ethos that is taking what is familiar about a pub, really celebrating that, but then adding something which is quite fun, maybe a bit sexy, maybe has a hidden message somewhere,” he explains, becoming more animated as he does so.

Hospitality spaces are Popelo’s main focus (Dan chose the name of the studio with the hope of opening his own venue one day in mind), but he’s also taken on a few residential projects for selected clients – “My projects are always super personal,” he explains. At a house renovation in Margate for his friend and collaborator, Ele Ward, that meant foraging for seaweed with her on the coastline, and then commissioning local artists to create soft furnishings. “The studio is about cultivating feeling. I’m interested in the question of how we can feel closer to a place?”

So, how has he created that here, at his flat on the southern edge of Victoria Park? “At home I have lots of things that tell stories as most of the art and objects are by friends, but I generally keep it quieter, more stripped back,” Dan says. “Home for me is calm, an escape.” The flat is particularly well-suited to those needs, with the main bedroom and living room opening onto balconies overlooking the canal and, beyond it, the greenery of the park. In summer, mornings begin with coffee on the balcony spotting turtles, “surprisingly large fish” and abandoned Lime bikes in the water before Dan heads to his studio on Shacklewell Lane. “Being north facing actually suits me because I get a bit of morning sun and then I’m out all day,” he says. As we come to expect by this point in the conversation, Dan enjoys the place most in the evening, when it gets dark. “I want it to feel like a spa. I flood the place with incense so it smells like a Greek church, have the light really low and just bliss out,” he describes.