Firm Profile

Cahoon and Kasten Architects is a nine person architectural firm resulting from the May 2000  merger of Benjamin Cahoon and Associates and Mark Arey Kasten, Architect.  Our office is located in Nags Head, North Carolina, and is the largest in northeastern North Carolina.

The firm’s goal for every project is to compose in client partnership an appropriate and innovative design solution.  Toward that end we work with diligence, creativity, and efficiency.  “Composing in client partnership” entails aggressive listening, seeking early and frequent feedback on designs, and finding ways to give clients what they ask for.   An “appropriate” solution meets the client’s needs, considers the environment, responds to its context and expresses its function.  “Innovative” solutions are spatially efficient, respond to restrictions creatively, and “fit” clients in ways only this kind of design partnership can yield.

Our project list closely reflects the area in which we practice and is very diverse.  Completed projects include small medical facilities, apartments, condominiums, inns, churches, stores, police and fire stations, recreation centers, offices, restaurants, light industrial facilities, and homes.  The majority of these projects are on the barrier islands of the Outer Banks the inland counties of Hyde and Tyrrell and in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.  Our attention to their needs has resulted in a long list of repeat clients.

Our partnership with each client is augmented by our selection of the appropriate engineers and other consultants necessary to complete the project.  We maintain close relationships with a short list of the best qualified and most professional civil, mechanical, electrical and geotechnical engineers, cost estimators, and others who share our design philosophy.  All aspects of each project must contribute to the “appropriate and innovative” solution.

“Diligence, creativity, and efficiency” are supplied in abundance by our well trained and highly skilled staff, using up to date CAD graphics, spreadsheet, and accounting software.  The entire staff shares the principal’s commitment to each client partnership and they seek to fulfill the client’s interest through complete and timely work, responsiveness to inquiries, accuracy in documents, and overall professionalism.  The staff’s interests in graphics, computer modeling, and construction has brought new and higher levels of service to our clients.  

At Cahoon and Kasten Architects we seek satisfying partnerships with every client.