The U-shaped feasthall and shared bedroom/dining room ideas are sounding interesting. I think I may modify the feasthall to fit with my general fortress plan.
I use a modified version of the shaft design described in the wiki:
- Designate central 7x7 square across several levels (this is room enough for four workshops, or forge + 3 smelters, with walking area in between.)
- Designate 2x2 stairs connected to each corner, then un-designate the stairs that are actually diagonally adjacent to the central area to create four "bracket" stairs around the center.
- Designate 3-tile-wide hallway around brackets.
I dig the stairs and hallway first on all levels, then excavate the central area in different ways. On craft levels, there's a doorway in the middle of each wall. For food production (kitchen, butcher, tanner, cage for excess birds/dogs/cats,) there's only one doorway, with an actual door to control miasma. Other levels might eliminate the walls entirely for meeting areas or other purposes. Outside the hallway, it's storage areas/other workshops, dining rooms, or bedrooms.
I've been trying different schemes for noble's rooms (split office/bedroom/dining across three levels, put all three rooms around one corner of a level.) What I'm thinking after reading this is that I can dig an 11x11 area out from one of the hallways on a level, put good table two tiles from one end, add good throne and assign this as a 5x5 dining room for a noble, then create a row of tables/chairs along either side to form the U in a grand feast hall, with the central area reserved for statues and other decorations. The 5x5 area is open to the rest of the dining hall, but doesn't overlap, so that makes it easier to keep the quality up. Plus, plenty of room around the table for fancy decorations.
It's not as compact as the designs I've been using, but I could easily put four such halls on one level, with food stockpiles at the corners and kitchen in the center. And I could modify my 2x3 bedrooms by removing the wall between pairs of rooms and putting a table/chair there, so that dwarves can have individual rooms while still being able to keep track of each other and minimize vampirism.