Following the earthquakes, the client's existing home required extensive foundation repair works.The client’s family was also continuing to expand, so a purposeful decision to retain, repair, and extend their home in lieu of demolition resulted in Pop-Top.

The brief for the refurbishment was to include the required foundation repairs, increase the bedrooms and add an additional bathroom, lounge, and separate laundry. The existing semi-open kitchen, dining, and living space would also be reworked to become much lighter and brighter,with a kitchen redesign to suit the growing family. The clients wanted to retain the outdoor living and lawn areas around the existing house.

The design response, faced with planning challenges of road boundary and internal boundary setbacks as well as site coverage constraints, as well as a much-loved existing character family home, was to ‘pop up’ a contemporary level 1 addition to the rear/southeast of the home to house children bedrooms and family bathroom. This also resulted in the full replanning of the ground-level services and amenities areas to suit the brief. The existing Skyline garage, separatedfrom the house and only requiring minor slab crack repairs, was not included within the newfamily home brief.

There is an elongated pop-out window seat on Level 1, alongside circulation, which sits proud of the Level 1 form and reaches out to interact with the street–in contrast to neighbouring houses.Retaining the existing fencing for the safety and security of pets, the pop-out gesture provides a subtle connection to the street from ‘over the fence’, providing a level of public/private interaction and connection.