Shelter poses global sustainability challenges, as the population increase accelerates and resources dwindle. It is crucial for initiatives addressing the growing housing demand to incorporate a sustainability perspective. Open source, a form of Internet information-sharing, is being utilised by various housing initiatives worldwide. However, a sustainability perspective is not always included in a robust and holistic way, despite the negative impacts for human needs and ecosystems resulting from many aspects of current housing practices. The Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development includes basic conditions for a sustainable society and a planning and decision-making methodology to move systematically towards sustainability. It provides a robust method for organizing, evaluating and using tools to aid in handling sustainability challenges effectively. This thesis aims to contribute to the development of affordable, sustainable design solutions, by modelling the incorporation of the FSSD into open source housing initiatives. A case study of a housing project under development in Ghana is used. Despite the complexity of the system under study, the research concludes that bringing a strategic sustainable development perspective to open source approaches can act as leverage for housing to move towards sustainability. Within this context, guidance is provided for approaching open source housing to contribute to SSD.