Scholarly record

TINY BUILDING. LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR BUILDING TINY HOUSES IN POLAND

Janusz Barnaś

Abstract

Tiny houses and buildings, as well as their associated lifestyles, have become a global phenomenon which is receiving a significant amount of media attention, in addition to being quite popular on the Internet. While living in a tiny house may seem attractive to and is even celebrated by some, the usable floor areas offered by most such buildings are far below what would currently be considered a proper housing standard and therefore can be considered as having a detrimental impact on quality of life. In the article the authors analyse the provisions of Polish construction law specifically as to how it relates to building tiny houses. Regulations concerning usable floor area, internal space dimensions and other factors were analysed, leading to the formulation of conclusions as to how a tiny house could be legally constructed in Poland and what basic requirements it would have to meet. The article also explores recent Polish legislation that is no longer enforced to determine whether it provided more suitable conditions for the construction of such buildings. This step is significant due to the nature of the regulations that were amended, as they had been much more specific and in-depth than the ones they were replaced with, providing more insight into the problem of tiny design.

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