Interstitial placemaking: unpacking the domains of relational urbanism of Belfast’s alleyways

This paper conceptualizes alleyways as interstitial spaces within which placemaking emerges through relational practices of inhabitation and care. Drawing on an extensive literature review of urban design interventions in urban interstices, it distils five recurring domains of placemaking: accessibility, land-use reprogramming, environmental retrofitting, security-stewardship and neighbourhood culture. Belfast’s alleyways are used for phenomenological scrutiny, revealing how these domains materialize amid ambiguous governance within post-industrial morphology. The study advances urban design thinking by framing placemaking as processual and patterned, while equipping urban design practitioners with a framework for reactivating residual interstitial fabrics.