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[blapnk]

I've had some ideas similar to OP: an Occupied cave, only with small rooms dug into the side for homes and personal workshops i.e. a mason will sleep in a room with a workshop no one else uses. The caverns themselves serve as a street and common area. Haven't worked out how I'd organise the larger heavier industries.

I've also wanted to have a large open strip mine all the way down and exposing the magma sea to the air. Then have a cast obsidian tower starting from the bottom all the way to the sky. Invaders should have to follow a dug path all the way down and cross a narrow bridge across the magma sea to gain entry.

City built into a flat cliff face with rooms open to the air like an ant farm

Underwater city built on the sea floor with a tradition of executing prisoners and criminals by drowning.

Edit: I like (mostly) single z fortresses because to me it's easier to find the workshops I want and suddenly had a thought about using minecart tracks on the sublevel to get around the long hauling distances and disconnected industries. It's more of a practical issue but I would love a fort that makes heavy use of minecarts one day.

[Urist Da Vinci]

I imagine dwarf fortresses to be like ant farms in/under a mountain. Not sure what to make of dwarves elsewhere. In any case, I don't imagine them building above-ground structures.

Impractical architecture is dwarfy. Short people excavating giant halls underground? Check! Want absurdly thin bridges or stairs with no handrails? Find a dwarf!

I do have a strong dislike of underground elves, especially those that happened to be named "Drow" or "Falmer". The very concept of an elf who lives underground is abhorrent.

[lechium]

... and correct me if I'm wrong, but just to make everything perfectly clear, you can't farm in a mountain biome even if you do irrigate the soil/sand/clay. ...

Correct.  There is no farming in a mountain biome, at all, ever, no matter what.

Not even in the caverns? The Dwarven civs get their plants only with herbalists?

Underground farms will work perfectly in any biome, actually - the problem is irrigation, if you have no soil, since you can't grow on straight rock.

Not so far back that was the only way to farm. But yeah you can't farm above ground in mountains, but you can farm.

[Roostre]

In my last fort, once my population hit 80 or so, I just started excavating new hallways and rooms all over the z-level where bedrooms and meeting halls went, intending to just get it all built in advance.

It turned out to be a great deal more living space than even a full fort of 200 needed.

So half of the rooms wound up having stockpiles put in to store coins, metal crafts and cut gems, with the "max bins" set to zero so they'd be like Scrooge McDuck's money bin with all this treasure lying out in the open. Many of my favorite individuals also had one of these treasure-hoard stockpiles put in their bedroom.

It helped that I didn't have to trade any of it off; bone crafts and tattered clothes pretty much covered all the trading I ever needed to do.

[Itnetlolor]

My idea of a dwarf fortress is an industrial complex that is almost unrecognizable as one (so well structured, that the workings are part of the scenery as well). Basically an extremely self-sufficient underground city with a livable surface village up top (however, most burrows/mini-forts are their own infrastructure as well. Like the farming districts.). Everyone has their own description of luxury. Some live on the surface, and others inside their own labrynth of gilded walls, while others have a cliffside overlook.

The magma of the central volcano is the lifeblood and arteries of the fortress, whereas the water is the veins of it, helping retain a cycle of life and death across the region.

Such an industrial complex would be responsible for dwarven technological progress that would make them the envy of the world. Power stations, airships, tanks... you name it, they'll build it.

[Loud Whispers]

I tend to just ignore optimized designs and go straight for what I want at the time. Towers, trenches and fortifications galore...

Well, at the moment anyways. Currently my two main projects revolve around one that is a series of trenches embedded in the ground, a rather nice change from standard Forts and my main Fort which is a series of interconnecting towers, Fortresses, subterranean complexes and monuments which I hope to transform into a Dwarf-made mountain.
These are some old stonesense caps showing how my Fort was when I could actually get stonesense to work:

Spoiler: Trench Fortress (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Fortress Fortress (click to show/hide)

[Snaake]

I like the trenches as a fort defense idea. Basically a moat that's also a bit of a labyrinth... Helps vs. enemy archers and superior numbers (and titan breaths) so you don't need more than a few elite melee dwarves for defence, but you can post archers in little turret towers if you want (if it's safe), or place cage/weapon traps and retracting drawbridges, magma flows etc. in them. I know all that can be done with other defensive layouts such as classic winding narrow paths or bridges etc., but this has better aesthetic value and feels more realistic IMO.

Sadly, incorporating siege weapons would be tricky/borderline useless in the current version due to line of sight issues, same-z shooting, and narrow fields of fire.

[roughedge]

I like the idea of a city directly in the cavern, with some nice houses built there, and somehow killing trolls is a normal everyday business for the local militia.

[LMeire]

Barely renovated mine.

I follow mineral veins for hallways and carve out rooms from the "ordinary" stone around them, occasionally ramping up or down by a level or two for maximum pathing issues. (I find that getting lost makes it hard for a siege to massacre the civilians, should they break through the first lines of defense.) Usually this design is rather on the "Oh crap I'm lost and dying of thirst" side so it helps to have multiple dining halls, wells and food stockpiles scattered about.

I like the idea of dwarves being so single-minded on digging up wealth and partying that they simply don't put any thought into city-planning or other "pointless elfy things" like that.

[Loud Whispers]

I like the trenches as a fort defense idea. Basically a moat that's also a bit of a labyrinth... Helps vs. enemy archers and superior numbers (and titan breaths) so you don't need more than a few elite melee dwarves for defence, but you can post archers in little turret towers if you want (if it's safe), or place cage/weapon traps and retracting drawbridges, magma flows etc. in them. I know all that can be done with other defensive layouts such as classic winding narrow paths or bridges etc., but this has better aesthetic value and feels more realistic IMO.

Sadly, incorporating siege weapons would be tricky/borderline useless in the current version due to line of sight issues, same-z shooting, and narrow fields of fire.

I imagine a Titan with a breath weapon would be fairly devastating in the trenches. Though then again, it is designed to minimize the effectiveness of all projectiles, and I suppose it's a great deal better than being in the open or in a hallway. My idea of trenches is literal; as in the Dwarves use them to move around under arrow fire and such with ease. Hence why filling it with magma might be a bit of a shocking act to take

[Broseph Stalin]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is my entrance. It provides a large outdoor area to plant above ground crops, maintain hives, and raise livestock while providing two levels of security. The main perimeter and the 11x11 fortress entrance can be secured by separate drawbridges allowing two levels of protection.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

These are my stockpiles. Each stockpile has an area of 55 urists and is positioned directly beside relevant workshops and relevant stockpiles. A mason can take a stone 4 paces to the shop then take the chair 4 paces to the furniture stockpile. Hyper efficient.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

These are my quarters. This setup provides 40 bedrooms containing one armor stand, one weapon rack,  a table and chair, two chests, a cabinet, a door and a bed. These rooms go to dwarves who are considered important to the fortress, that usually ends up being 50% of the fort.

Garbage dwarves sleep in dormitories at the end of the hall. Occasionally if one impresses me but not eough to warrant his own room I'll assign them their own bed in the dorm.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is the dining hall. I like keeping them small because anectdotal evidence suggestss they help dwarves build relationships faster. With the right materials and quality modifiers it's always royal quality.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here's my noble quarters. All nobles come from the original 7 regardless of qualification. The King gets a custom room on a different floor.

[Snaake]

I like the trenches as a fort defense idea. Basically a moat that's also a bit of a labyrinth... Helps vs. enemy archers and superior numbers (and titan breaths) so you don't need more than a few elite melee dwarves for defence, but you can post archers in little turret towers if you want (if it's safe), or place cage/weapon traps and retracting drawbridges, magma flows etc. in them. I know all that can be done with other defensive layouts such as classic winding narrow paths or bridges etc., but this has better aesthetic value and feels more realistic IMO.

Sadly, incorporating siege weapons would be tricky/borderline useless in the current version due to line of sight issues, same-z shooting, and narrow fields of fire.

I imagine a Titan with a breath weapon would be fairly devastating in the trenches. Though then again, it is designed to minimize the effectiveness of all projectiles, and I suppose it's a great deal better than being in the open or in a hallway. My idea of trenches is literal; as in the Dwarves use them to move around under arrow fire and such with ease. Hence why filling it with magma might be a bit of a shocking act to take

Yea the idea behind the titan mention was that dwarves would at least be able to get close before the titan sees them and breathes. Better than out in the open, indeed. I also meant the trenches were the kind that both the dwarves and also maybe their enemies would move in. I didn't mean the trenches would be filled with magma. Maybe a system where the trenches can be divided into sections by raising bridges in the trenches, then magma is let into the trench through a lowered bridge in it's side. Or just have a simple forbidden, non-pet-passable door (shut doors are always magma-safe iirc) in the side of the trench every now and then, dig out one tile behind that, and fill that one tile with magma (by a manual pump installed behind it, or by minecart from above). That little arrangement should cause building-destroyers to burn themselves to death with magma. Not recommended against zombies or other undead though, since you'll just upgrade them to !!zombies!!, as is often mentioned on the boards.

[Loud Whispers]

-snip-

How is that all actually defended? Seems like there's little room for Marksdwarves and other soldiers to fight goblins effectively.

[Broseph Stalin]

-snip-

How is that all actually defended? Seems like there's little room for Marksdwarves and other soldiers to fight goblins effectively.

Everything you see there is the secure area of the fort, if there's any fighting in there I've fucked up. The trade depot is an airlock and a short trapped pathway separates the airlock from the fort. The infantry gets ready inside the airlock while the markswarves are on the roof sniping the invaders. When I open the airlock the infantry hits all at once while the marksdwarves are wearing them down. 

[smurfingtonthethird]

I tend to make big 8x8 rooms, purely because that is what you get from shift-clicking an area. Beds are just cordoned off sections of the squares, and most of the beds are next to food production and industry.

Through the passage of time, however, my forts end up looking like rabbit warrens. Most tunnels are filled with abandoned projects, magma/water, old mining passes, vampires/werebeasts, tombs,live cats and stockpiles of dead shit.