Rob Allen has posted a simple example of the Zend_Layout component (since it's in the trunk now) both with a screenshot of the output and the method to set it up.
This example consists of three view files: the outer layout file, the index action view script and a right hand side bar. The remainder of this post describes the key files. If you just want to poke around with the code, then it's at the bottom, so page down now!
He defines the directory layout, sets up his bootstrap file and creates the parts that do the work - the controller and the two-step view layer (with the "inner" scripts that output the information and the layout itself the content fits into).