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[Thisfox]

Aquifer-fed well in the main hall, with a wellroom underneath it accessed by stairs near the well. Wellroom is often where the nobles rooms are adjoined to. This is a short distance from a seperate aquifer-fed waterfall over the only walkways to the drinks and food. I know people keep saying that this means the dorfs will drop their babies, but so far, they've managed fine with carrying things under the waterfall, and everyone is clean. I love aquifers.

All rooms have doors, hatches, or other means of closing them. The whole fort might have more than 250 doors, housing 70 dorfs comfortably. There is always a central staircase, usually 2x2, sometimes 2x3, linking the whole fort together. It has a lot of hatches, lockable in disaster situations.

Bedrooms are in little "halls" with four, six, or eight bedrooms opening through a door into the communal hall. Bedrooms have always been large, even for humble peasant dorfs. Three by three at least, with a cabinet, bed and chest. I've never had issues with dorfs bugging out on their own possession storage, and I like the morale boost. There will be a specific "hall" for dorf children, with the main room having a small binless toy stockpile and often a food stockpile, tables and chairs, and private well. Children can be locked in during disasters, and often are.

Nobles diningrooms and offices are always adjoining, so that you walk through the office to get to the dining room, or vice versa. Often there's a noble bedroom next in the row. If necessary, nobles can be locked in too.

I love huge pillared rooms with polished floors and engraved walls throughout. Furniture is in constrasting coloured stone, and often encrusted with gemstones. I never bother with windows, but doors are usually covered in gemstones as well.

[bigcalm]

One feature I always have is the "double bridge".  Any entrance to the fort (caverns, surface, etc.) will be protected by a bridge serving as the first line of defence, and a second bridge serving as the last line of defence.  There's generally either a reasonable amount of room between the two bridges, or something to distract anything that gets between them (traps etc.)

In terms of layout my normal base these days is in the shape of the "5" on a dice.  Each of the "5" points is a 3x3 up/down staircase that extends from the surface to the lowest level of bedrooms, and each main staircase relates to an industry (Animals, Ore, Plants, Cloth, etc.). 
The general z-level plan is (from the surface): 0 - surface farms and pastures ; 1 - nothing; 2 - underground farms, underground pastures and a way to completely seal the base from the surface using fireproof bridges; 3 - empty (overflow and plumbing) ; 4 - "raw" stockpiles; 5 - empty (overflow and plumbing) ; 6 - workshops ; 7 - plumbing, finished goods stockpiles and depot (underground road from the surface to depot just outside the base - also serves as the trap locations for invading sieges ; 8 - finished goods stockpiles (armour, weapons, clothing, etc.) ; 9 - empty (overflow and plumbing); 10 - great hall, hospital, well, temples, taverns, libraries; 11 - lever rooms ; 12-17 bedrooms.  There are interconnecting corridors on the non-empty levels excepting 2 where it gets fiddly with surface water.  This changes a little depending on aquifers but not massively - everything gets shifted down a couple of levels, I still puncture the aquifer in 5 places.

[Cyroth]

Pretty much all my forts feature many rooms spanning multiple z levels. I plan everything length or width related using uneven numbers. Height is 1,2,3 or 5 levels. Higher is uncommen, 4 is never happening.

My entry is almost always a 7 tile wide corridor, about 15 tiles long and 2 or 3 z levels high, with fortifications on the highest level. If at least 3 z high expect little nooks in the walls containing statues or engravings (or sometimes bookshelves, because why not?). I also went through a phase when the wall on the interior end of the corridor would contain multiple "minecart railguns" able to fire out of the entrance.

Taverns are also several z levels high. Often there is a balcony on the highest z level encompassing the tavern on 3 sides, with the rooms for visitors arranged along its walls.

Libraries are, again, several z levels high, with engraved pillars every few tiles and rows of bookshelves connecting the pillars as makeshift "walls". Little nooks on the sides containing tables and chairs or chests and cupboards. If I go for the full 5 levels of height there are usually narrow "walkways" on level 3 and 5, containing more bookshelves, cupboards and chests.

Even normal corridors are often 3 tiles wide and 2 z levels high, with little statue nooks on the sides.

[Heliman]

Since I've been playing around with building styles that fit a fortress into a single tile because of a megaproject of mine, so I abuse multiple Z-levels a lot. The main thoroughfare of my current fortress is about 20 z levels tall, and scrapes the first cavern layer.

I usually dedicate an entire level of this 1-tile to food production/storage and a legendary dining hall. I use the size of the latter to train up my first engraver to legendary early, meaning I can make noble quarters smaller when they pop up.

[KittyTac]

Since I've been playing around with building styles that fit a fortress into a single tile because of a megaproject of mine, so I abuse multiple Z-levels a lot. The main thoroughfare of my current fortress is about 20 z levels tall, and scrapes the first cavern layer.

I usually dedicate an entire level of this 1-tile to food production/storage and a legendary dining hall. I use the size of the latter to train up my first engraver to legendary early, meaning I can make noble quarters smaller when they pop up.

1 tile fort? Then how do you build workshops?

[Zuglarkun]

These are architectural designs I try to port over to every fort I do. I consider them non-mundane enough to be distinctly recognizable from other fortresses and overseers. Mind you, these were designs from 34.11 and early 40.24 versions.

Spoiler: Tomb entrance design (click to show/hide)

Heck I could use it for any entrance, but I always use it for the tombs. Note the important feature I always reproduce in my fortresses is the protruding archway over the 3 tile road.

Spoiler: What I use for my main entrance instead (click to show/hide)

Main level. 4 bridges in middle are retracting. the 2 bridges sandwiching them are raising inwards. When invaders arrive the 4 bridges in center are retracted, forcing them to take the longer route. When a sufficient quantity of them enter the winding paths, I raise the other 2 bridges, trapping them inside where my crossbow dwarves can plink away at them with impunity.


Top level for stationing crossbowdwarves. When I want them to reload, I station them in the alcove to the right, breaking line of sight. This usually prompts them to seek ammo.


Bottom level, Pit that spans 10-20 z-levels down. Where I mop up siegers that fall from above with military.


This is how the thing looks with bridges retracted.

This was before they implemented gaits and jumping. Nowadays, the gap between the paths needs to be 2 tiles or more to prevent invaders jumping the gaps, which makes it impractically large.

Spoiler: I use this nowadays (click to show/hide)

Operates on same principle of thinning out invader concentration and lengthening travel time to fortress to increase response time for military to muster, just not as efficient a design for marksdwarves.
GROUND LEVEL


TOP LEVEL

Spoiler: obligatory water reactor and well (click to show/hide)

[Heliman]

Since I've been playing around with building styles that fit a fortress into a single tile because of a megaproject of mine, so I abuse multiple Z-levels a lot. The main thoroughfare of my current fortress is about 20 z levels tall, and scrapes the first cavern layer.

I usually dedicate an entire level of this 1-tile to food production/storage and a legendary dining hall. I use the size of the latter to train up my first engraver to legendary early, meaning I can make noble quarters smaller when they pop up.

1 tile fort? Then how do you build workshops?

I'm referring to embark tiles. That means a 48x48 area to work with in-game. I can make plenty of workshops, but It's pretty darn cramped; I originally ran it so I could play on my craptop, and now I play it because I like the challenge.

[carldong]

Wall in at first possible moment, then build everything including pots (except beds) with stone. At first possible moment setup a u-tube and floor grate filtered central pressurized cistern regulated by pressure plate/drawbridge combo.

All mineshafts will be engraved with carefully designed tracks connecting "cache distribution networks".

Only open the external bridge when absolutely necessary, like getting wood inside or welcoming migrants.

Unfortunately, I don't really setup military. Sometimes I build traps, other times I rely on airlocks.

[Fleeting Frames]

@Zuglarkun: *whistles* That's a very nice tomb entrance, that I haven't seen before. The embossing is excellent idea.

@Hellman: As I've noticed, more like 38x38 due edge building limitation. Not truly an onerous restriction given that walled-off max size zone or stockpile is 33x33, but it somewhat weakens ballista, waterguns, magma landmines and other such stuff.

[Dunamisdeos]

The common hub and foodworks!

There is a central hub, usually round in shape. One branch is a 3x3 corridor. On one side is a rectangle for food storage, and small alcoves for every food-or-animal based industry. On the other side of the corridor is the dining room. Farms must be directly connected via stairwell to the food stockpile.

One branch will lead to industry, and another will lead to the royal quarters and military. If I can help it, military facilities have private passages spanning the fort.

[Fleeting Frames]

By a 3x3 corridor, do you mean 3-high, 3-wide corridor of upstair-updownstair-downstair x3?

[Dunamisdeos]

I hate low ceilings. They are dwarves, not rats or roaches or goblins or vermin or elves.

I admit if it's some kind of utilitarian fort meant to test some concept or another, or in a super hostile environment I skip the height.

[Fleeting Frames]

...You didn't say which one, though?

[Packocrayons]

I would have to say the flowing river around my library, with pumps lifting up to a waterfall.
My books get soggy when I make mistakes.

[Dorsidwarf]

I've recently started doing spiral downwards tunnels for my main fort rather than stairways. I feel that it looks nice and makes the fort more intuitive for exploring and so on