A small number of real alternatives rather than one idea with variations, seeing an option you don't want is often how you work out what you do.
You have been told you will see options and you are not sure what that means. Three drawings of the same house with the kitchen in different corners, or three genuinely different ideas. Both get called options, and the difference between them is most of the value of the stage.
There is no rule about the number. Nobody sets one, and more is not better — five options usually means nobody has done the thinking yet. What matters is whether they differ in kind. Two schemes that put the addition in the same place are one scheme with a rearranged kitchen.
The useful ones test a decision rather than a preference. Extend at the rear, or raise and build underneath. Keep the kitchen where it is, or move the whole living end towards the north. Those are the choices that set the cost of everything after them, and they are far easier to argue about while they are still only drawings.
Two of the three will be wrong. You are paying for those two as much as for the one you keep.
Options are how a design gets tested rather than defended. Comparing three approaches surfaces the actual priorities — which are frequently not the stated ones — and it does so while changes still cost nothing but time.
Delight, and the specific pleasure of being shown something you would never have thought of. This is the stage people tell their friends about. It is also the stage where you can finally see what you are paying for, because it is on the table in front of you.
One scheme, presented as the answer. The client has no basis for comparison, so feedback becomes cosmetic — a preference about a window rather than a question about the plan. What's lost is the better scheme that was never drawn.
I promise you genuinely different approaches, not one idea with three window variations. That is a real commitment, and it is part of why Concept Design carries about a quarter of the total fee — three schemes is roughly three times the thinking. An explorer shows you the territory. A designer shows you the answer. I would rather show you the territory, because seeing an option you do not want is very often how you work out what you do.
There is no standard and nobody publishes one. Two or three genuinely different approaches is a reasonable expectation for a house. What matters more than the number is what gets agreed in advance: how many options are included in the stage, how many rounds of revision come with them, and what a further round costs. Under the Institute's agreement, work beyond the agreed scope is a change both parties have to negotiate and record in writing — so ask before you become attached to the idea of a fourth option.
Schematic design is the international term for what Australia usually calls concept design, and the Institute's agreement names the two stages Concept Design and Design Development. Concept settles the big moves: the plan, the massing, where things sit, roughly how it works. Design development takes the approved concept and resolves it to the level the approvals need, brings the engineer and other consultants on, and locks it. The distinction is commercial as much as technical. What is still fluid in concept has hardened by the end of development.
Some include them, many do not, and it is worth asking rather than assuming. In the Institute's standard agreement, illustration — 2D marketing drawings, 3D images, animations — sits under additional services, so it is only in your fee if the box has been ticked. Also worth knowing: a polished render is a persuasion tool and it can flatter a plan that does not work. A rough model you can turn around, or a section cut through the house showing how the light gets in, will usually tell you more about living there.
Yes, and this is the stage to do it. Be clear which of two things you are asking for. A change to an existing option — move the stair, flip the plan, drop the roof — is usually part of the stage. A fourth distinct scheme is additional work and should come with a stated cost before it is drawn. Neither request is unreasonable. The one that causes trouble is the vague one, where nobody establishes which of the two it was until the invoice arrives.
They should come with an order of cost, which is a range rather than a price. A concept you cannot afford wastes everyone's time, and the best moment to discover that is while there are still three of them on the table. Ask for an early price check from a builder or a quantity surveyor at this stage. It is the cheapest cost advice you will buy on the whole project, and the option it kills is the one that would otherwise have cost you a full set of drawings to rule out.
If you would rather start small, the First Sketch Session is two hours at your place. You keep the sketches, and there is no obligation afterwards.