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[Darvi]

I usually build my fortresses horizontally, with  farms,   depot and military, workshops and stockpiles, and sleeping quarters and   the dinging room each sharing a z-level, going from up to down.    Everything below that is for mining, stockpiling, and exploration. Oh,   and magma forges.
  My main hallways are 3 tiles wide and arranged as a cross. That way I   can separate the rooms by function (say by putting noble sleeping   quarters, regular sleeping quarters, the cemetery, and the dinging room   and the statue garden in separate corners) and I can expand in 2   directions respectively.
 
  Of course there are exceptions. One of my fortresses has a river right   behind it, so almost no horizontal expansion there. It's worth it for   the waterfall though.

[Artzbacher]

1st level: farms.
2: directly underneath the farm is the food stockpile and a still.
3: dining room, directly underneath the food. The meeting area is in another room on the same level.
4: royal sleeping quarters. For everyone.
5: carpenters workshop/wood stockpile.
6: smelter/iron ore stockpile/metal bar stockpile.
7: forge with direct access to the metal stockpile.
8 and underneath: masons, mechanics, craftdwarves etc.
Final level: tombs.

I usually have the military train outside and have their bedrooms right underneath the barracks, on the farm level.

[Buttery_Mess]

My basic design is lazy, but I find effective. The basic room plan is an 11x11 square. Rooms are connected with three 1x1 passages in the middle. Nine workshops can fit in the space in a nice grid, with four 1x11 paths crossing eachother inbetween them, that link between two opposing passages. I prefer now to place four up/down stairways, each splayed diagonally across the room two diagonal spaces from the centre, which leaves room for a 3x3 workshop in middle. This way I can easily link to storage spaces above or below.

When rooms need to be rooms, I usually base the room structure off my workshop structure; a 3x wide hallway, with 3x 3, 6 or 9 rooms hanging off connected by a 1x1 doorway; some rooms deviate from this basic setup, usually left as a 11x11 room.

I'd recommend this setup to anyone; it's easy to make, being heavily reliant on shift+cursor, so it's easy to make uniform sized rooms without asymmetry cock-ups. It's versatile enough to deviate from without ruining the fort's aesthetic, either.

Overall, hallways tend to be inefficient. Why bother with them?

[JacenHanLovesLegos]

Overall, hallways tend to be inefficient. Why bother with them?

Agreed, but I still find them usefull.

[Buttery_Mess]

Overall, hallways tend to be inefficient. Why bother with them?

Agreed, but I still find them usefull.

When you need to get somewhere and don't want to put anything useful in the intervening space, yeah

[Cassicotca]

Depends if i make it top or bottom centred. Usually top centred with only metal works at magma.
In top centred:
1-Z Farms and food production
2-Z Arts and crafts
3-Z Rooms
A hunderd z with nothing
At magma smelting and smithing

The outside is boring with only a wall and ocasionally a moat.

[mazterlith]

I've tried to make the area that I use for flooding and thus farming have a zero percent chance of flooding the rest of my fort. My fort in general is designed to be "infinitely expandable." This is so I can continuously expand my stockpiles as I need them to expand. Currently I am working on making a magma pump that also has a low probability of failing or destroying itself by tantrums or otherwise.

[Erkki]

I use this:



With food stockpiles in the middle, and all 4 walls have 6 tables and chairs each, making it royal dining room. 4th tile in each bedroom allows you to add a statue/stand/rack to increase value... Effective-ish.

[SurfinShroom]

I think my designs the most efficient possible?
The drawback being if they get inside your boned. :L
Its 31x31 with 9 3x3 staircases. I'll post a picture

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Its like that
Entrance (ground) level area is wood/food storage, with carpenters workshops located in 3x3 corridors.
One level down is farm/food storage+extended food storage since i'm currently at 3k plant/meat/drink. Terrifiying surroundings my ass.
Constructed a level above my entrance to house the barracks/above ground farm, and the entire place is walled and floored off.

[Funk-Tech Operative #3]

My default floor setup:
Stockpile (includes meeting hall)
Workshops
Workshops
Apartments
Apartments
Mining Shaft (beginning)

[Vinnie]

surround cage traps with dry moat

Dry is a bit of a dirty word, in dwarven culture. No matter the connotation, it conjures up far too many images of prohibition, turning even the most industrious dwarf myopic.

Try more magma.

[Tokkius]

I prefer to build like a plant grows.

[Illanair]

*imagines a dwarf fortress shaped like a flower petal in the sky*

Well atleast you shouldn't have problems with dragons, unless you build it on a soap support or something flammable.

[darkflagrance]

Overall, hallways tend to be inefficient. Why bother with them?

Useful for defense and making chokepoints in case of infection or amphibian man invasion. Also, they are the most efficient way of spacing out large, multi-z-level structures without digging out too much fps-slaying stone.

I've become enamoured of organic-styled forts that seemed to grow chaotically, so I try to follow that philosophy when creating the underground areas of my fort. Since I also love megaprojects, I also often create giant underground theatres with moriaesque pillars, along with aboveground walled cities of palaces surrounded by archer towers, skyscraper apartments and flying bridges.

[penco]

I tend to create visually pleasing forts rather than forts with raw efficiency in mind, although they are fairly efficient.

I start by moating off most of the surface layer. The only way to enter is through a tunnel (that I like to keep always open or the game is too easy). This tunnel is full of watchdogs, traps, siege engines, and places to shoot from a higher z-level. After a long stretch is the depot.

Dig a few levels low and make the main navigation hall. In the middle is the main meeting room, with dining halls underneath. Branching off in the four directions is a bedroom wing, a production wing, an agriculture wing, and a military wing (which is usually beneath the depot). When I am feeling extra productive, I will add a waterfall to each of those hallways to guarantee that my dwarfs are always full of happiness. Sometimes, I channel out all the ceiling above my meeting room to prevent cave adaptation.

It's a simple but effective layout. I always run into trouble because I don't leave myself enough room to drain the waterfalls and irrigation.