In 2009 Michael Graves formed a design partnership with one of the world's great medical tehnology companies, Stryker Medical, to address "the last frontier in healthcare design, the patient room." The two companies worked together to conduct months of ethnographic research, studying the environment and the way current furniture is being used. The result of this joint venture is a suite of patient room furniture which demonstrates Graves' philosophy that objects in healthcare environments can have a symbolic as well as a pragmatic function, with straightforward solutions that combine simple utility, functional innovation and elevated aesthetics. The furniture collection is the first collaboration of this meaningful relationship. Several other projects are in the pipeline for the future.