The American Institute of Architects routinely surveys architects, and the latest findings show increased informality and convenience. There’s less emphasis on big sweeping entrances and stairways, now that McMansions have made a junior Trump out of everyone with a five-fig down-payment. The biggest trends are home offices and home theaters. Full writeup here.

Meanwhile, over in consumer electronics, the custom installers are reporting their five big trends of 2006 are:

Room equalization software – this would be built into your AV receiver. The receiver can be customized for the size of your room, and the size and location of your speakers. Makes sense, but expect an added charge both for the equipment, and for Frank the AV Guy to tweak it into shape. Some of these receivers come with special microphone packages where Frank puts it in different places in the room while leering at your wife. The receiver automatically calibrates and optimizes for your setup.

Our Quick Picks – Tops: Lexicon MC8; Value: Integra DTC9.4; Can’t go wrong with: Sony, Marantz, Denon. Stay away from: Bose.

Home healthcare systems – monitoring, de-fibs, etc. We don’t have any picks in this space.

Media-centric PCs – biggest thing since the Newton. Seriously, it looks like this lie is about to become the real thing. Apple has some nice software, though Wintel has the edge when it comes to a fully-customizable package (twin-HDTV tuners, PVR, etc).

Our Quick Picks – HP’s investing heavily and generally reliable, but Alienware will earn your kids’ respect

1080P TVs – This should be the last incremental video update for a good long time. 1080p means 1080 vertical progressive scan-lines (vs interlaced, which is generally inferior). It’s the highest quality of the many flavors of HDTV that are out there.

Our Quick Picks – Wait a few months for this. Too high a premium right now. Generally Panasonic’s are the go-to guy in plasmas. For bathrooms, the gym, and other step-down locations, consider a Dell. Good picture, great features, rock-bottom pricing. I understand they accidentally spent $13 in R&D last year. Someone’s gonna get fired.

Lighting automation systems – nice features like complex scenes with one button push, dim “path” lighting so you get just a splash of light when you’re visiting the bathroom at nighttime, and automatic “vacation” lighting to fool every Margot Kidder hiding in the bushes while you’re off skiing.

Our Quick Picks – Lutron Homeworks is the Cadillac here, but you’re fine with LiteTouch, Vantage or others. Don’t use Crestron for lighting—they’re great for keypads and touchpads, but don’t let your guy talk you into buying their lighting components (and he will try). Crestron can work with Lutron just fine. Above all, stay away from anything called X10.