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[Rogue Yun]

It is about survival. It is about art. It is about comfort. It is about torture.
It is the underlying life force of all things dwarf fortress.
It is...
!!Feng Dwarfy!!
Design and Architecture

I had a hankering to start a thread where people could and should post pics/designs for parts of their forts that they consider particularly pleasant/grotesque to look at. A dining hall with waterfalls, a noble bedroom, a drowning chamber, a noble drowning chamber, or whatever architectural masterpiece or design you deem worthy enough to share.

Though examples of large mega-constructions of course are welcome, I'd like to see, particularly, the small touches in detail that help paint the bigger picture. Regular peasant burrows, the first diggings in the side of a cliff. The aftermath of a forgotten beast. Just about anything in game that you consider artistic or pleasant to look at.

The idea is to motivate average players to greater construction achievements, no matter how small. All my fortresses tend to look the same, small, bland and secure. I think it is time I started looking outside the box and explored new horizons. To put the lives of dwarven masons at risk. I invite you to enlighten me with your techniques and art of construction, or join me on my quest.

Though I might have to change this clause, I'd also like for users to refrain from using the "spoiler" tags when posting images. This is a kind of art gallery after all.

If you have criticism of anything particular I encourage you to be light and good natured about it. The goal is to edify others. And though some art is very popular and others less so, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A bit of praise can go a long way.

Image Hosting sites:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://postimage.org/
http://imgur.com/

If you can think of other image hosting sites to include you are welcome to mention them and I will do my best to include them.

[Itnetlolor]

I love what I was capable of doing with Wavehandle. The dining hall being the main project of the fort. Everything else fell into place. That being my first real foray into playing DF, before my megaproject Bloodfist was executed.

[Rogue Yun]

Whoa! That's amazing! It is quite a lot for me to take in. All at once. Other than the dining hall was there any other rooms that you liked a lot? I notice some rooms to the right to have what look to be engravings. Are those your versions of statue gardens?



Here is a hospital I am pleased with. Small, compact, symetrical. Easy access to the beds/tables/traction bench/coffers. I liked it.

[Itnetlolor]

More or less. They're supposed to be libraries telling lores of the land and fortress; but traffic wasn't enough to properly populate them, and food would be stuck in those rooms if I added in chairs. A statue inside them probably would have worked well enough to have regular visitors.

As for other rooms, the watering holes (north and south of the dining hall) and the sewer beneath was quite the undertaking I'm also rather proud of. Nowadays I make sure to include such a feature in all of my forts. Practical and pretty if done right. Functional and efficient, and easily moddable/uppgradeable/linkable when built correctly. In my latest fort, the watering holes capture the water from the brook every warm season, and cold seasons keep the water cool to drink.

EDIT:
Forgot about the meeting hall bit.

EDIT EDIT:
To make some rather nice builds, draw up a flowchart, starting from the entrance, core feature, or end goal, and build in a similar fashion. It's working so far with my most recent fort, and is also rather snazzy with how it's applied.

Spoiler: Recent Fort Example (click to show/hide)

The fortress looks similar to these plans outright.

[Eric Blank]

You could have made them meeting halls as well.

[Rogue Yun]

Spoiler: Recent Fort Example (click to show/hide)

This is very useful ! Thank you.

I got water to my fortress via aqueduct from a nearby pond. It filters/moves it to an aboveground well at the top of a central staircase. Its vulnerable to the air but is well (no pun intended) guarded otherwise. But your design is very simplistic and seems more secure as well (again, no pun intended).

[thegoatgod_pan]

Key points in traditional Feng Shui:

1.  Never, ever, ever, break the earth: foundations are built up, never down, and never digging in.

2.  Mountain at the back, lake or sea at the front.

3.  The more enclosures, the more important the enclosed thing is

4. Curved lines are good, straight lines are very, very bad, especially when it comes to approaches and vistas towards a building.

[Broseph Stalin]

Ever since I started doing more than just utilitarian ad hoc fortress building I've been a huge proponent of vertical fortress design.

I keep an above ground area completely sealed off. In this case there's a tower that allows entrance into the fort directly above it.



These are my primary stockpiles. The southern one holds blocks and raw stone the northern one contains everything else. Normally there would be a 11x21 stockpile on either side for wood but in this case it's stored in the tower.



These are the workshops. They're fed by the primary stockpile so that all of their resources are kept directly beside them.



To the left is the jails (and a quarantined wereape) to the right is the tombs (and one mausoleum) to the south is a dining hall and to the north is the nobles quarters.
 


Bedrooms, the right wing is awaiting coffers.

[PillarsOfSalt]

Personally, I've always been a big fan of vertical fortresses. It looks nice and seems much more efficient. Hotkeys let me pan through floors and important areas quickly. F1: entrance; F2: kitchen/farms; F3: workshops; F4: forges, etc...

[Broseph Stalin]

Rampartcastle

-1
0
1
2

Slightly modified design.

[TD1]

Oh. Nice thread.

PTW.

[Arx]

Some day, I'll stop building things in as compact and fast a manner as possible and start caring about aesthetics. Against the possibility of that day, PTW.

[taptap]

Please someone post something not symmetrical...

[Broseph Stalin]

Symmetry is beauty

[Rogue Yun]

Symmetry is beauty

Symmetry is my OCD kicking in >.>

I love your fortress btw