Tony Fadell of Nest, Rem Koolhaas and Paul Goldberger speak at “Design in the Digital Age” at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit. Image: Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Vanity Fair

Paul Goldberger, Joseph Urban Professor of Design at Parsons and Contributing Editor at Vanity Fair, interviewed Nest CEO and Founder Tony Fadell and OMA founding partner Rem Koolhaas for the “Design in the Digital Age” session of the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit. The Summit took place October 8 and 9 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The panel discussed the role of technology in architecture and design, as well as differing attitudes toward architecture around the world. According to Koolhaas, in countries such as China, where the pace of development is very rapid, decision makers are younger and therefore more open to new and riskier designs. Koohaas said, “My final conclusion, and this surprised me, is that the thing that matters most when it comes to designing buildings around the world is the age of the decision maker… In China, the decision maker is 35, in Europe, the decision maker is 55. In America, the decision maker is a trustee, so they might be older.”

More information about this session and the summit can be found here.