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About

Museum
Planning LLC.

Museum Planning LLC has spent thirty years designing institutions — concept through opening day — where communities encounter something they could not have built alone.

The Methodology

The museum is
the methodology.

Museum Planning LLC does not sell hours. The firm sells a methodology — thirty years of codified expertise in how museums get built, how they get funded, how they get used, and how they last.

Every engagement begins with the same question: what does this community need that it does not yet have? The answer shapes everything that follows — the feasibility study, the strategic plan, the master plan, the exhibition design. The process is the same whether the institution is a $300,000 community history museum in Georgia or a $25 million science center in Indonesia.

The methodology is documented in two books published by Bloomsbury, embodied in a suite of planning tools used by museum professionals worldwide, and tested across 40+ institutions on three continents.

40+
Institutions — US, Latin America, Europe, Asia
1999
Founded — 25+ years of continuous practice
2
Bloomsbury books — Museums 101 + Designing Museum Experiences
3
Continents — concept through opening day

Smithsonian Institution

Washington, D.C.

Design Consultant

Children's Museum of Indianapolis

Indianapolis, Indiana

Project Director

Museo Interactivo de Economía (MIDE)

Mexico City, Mexico

Project Manager

Trans Studio Science Center

Bandung, Indonesia

Master Planning + Exhibition Design

C.O. Polk Interactive Museum

McDonough, Georgia

Turnkey Museum Services

Alcatraz: Life on the Rock

National Park Service

Traveling Exhibition — Project Manager

1999

Principal

Mark
Walhimer

Managing Partner · Museum Planning LLC

Mark Walhimer is personally involved in every engagement. He is not a firm with associates and project managers. He is the methodology — the person who walks into the room with 30 years of pattern recognition across 40+ institutions and tells you what you need to know before you commit capital.

He began his career in the studios of artists Judy Pfaff and Donald Lipski, holds degrees from Skidmore College and Pratt Institute, and has served as Executive Director of the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon, Georgia.

Fulbright Specialist
Author — Museums 101 (Bloomsbury)
Author — Designing Museum Experiences (Bloomsbury)
Faculty — Georgia Institute of Technology
Faculty — Tec de Monterrey, Mexico City
Executive Director — Museum of Arts and Sciences, Macon GA
Design Consultant — Smithsonian Institution

Also

Mark Walhimer — Artist

A generative art practice begun in 2022. Browser-based works built in p5.js, WebGL, and GLSL shaders. Five works submitted to Prix Ars Electronica 2026. Exhibited at MIRADAS TANGENTES, Madrid, 2026.

mark-walhimer.com →

2028 Target

Strategic acquisition opportunity

Museum Planning LLC is building toward a strategic acquisition by an architecture firm, fabrication firm, or design agency seeking immediate market leadership in the museum sector. Inquiries welcome.

The Theoretical Foundation

Museums will no longer be defined as buildings — but as distributed interpretive systems.

In November 2025, Museum Planning LLC published the Convergence Era white paper — a framework for understanding the transformation now underway at the intersection of industrial design, artificial intelligence, spatial computing, and cultural institutions.

The museum is the proof of concept. Every planning tool, every MVI report, every strategic plan we deliver is built inside this framework. The institution you build in 2026 will still be operating in 2056. It needs to be ready for what comes next.

Read the Convergence Era white paper →

Let's build
your museum.

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