Another way is to add an observer in the topic-list component that observes topics.[] and re-runs masonry after render. i.e. something like:
withPluginApi(0.8.16, () api => {
api.modifyClass('component:topic-list', {
masonryObserver: function() {
// update masonry here, probably wrapped in Ember.run.scheduleOnce('afterRender', () => {})
}.observes('topics.[]')
})
})