Playing the Long Game

While “unprecedented” was the catchword of the pandemic, “uncertainty” may be the most repeated way to describe the current economy: uncertainty about material supply, inflation, costs, project timelines, and more. Architectural metal companies have been dealing with the entrenched nature of business uncertainty this past year, while also navigating the tariffs and supply issues unique to metal fabrication and manufacturing. The long-term effects of trade tensions, combined with increasing demand for higher-performing systems, is changing the way some companies plan for the future.  

Architectural metal technical resources 

Find these and further resources online at glass.org and store.fgiaonline.org. 

• NGA Commercial Fenestration Systems Manual 
• NGA Heavy Glass Door Design Manual 
• AAMA SFM-1, Aluminum Storefront and Entrance Manual 
• AAMA 611, Specification for Anodized Architectural Aluminum 

1 | Distruptions in production 

Two fires that broke out at Novelis’s Oswego, New York-based hot mill disrupted supply to some architectural metal suppliers and fabricators this past year. The first fire broke out in September 2025, with another starting in November during repair work. Hot mill operations resumed in May 2026, according to Manufacturing Dive. The shutdown affected major commercial customers like Ford, as well as some metal suppliers to the building industry. 

Tom O’Malley, managing partner at Clover Architectural Products, says that the fires disrupted access to 3/8-inch plate specifically, which is only produced by a few mills. While hot mill operations have resumed, companies from other industries were given preferential treatment, leading to delays for lower-priority companies, he says, who are now also dealing with higher rates from the mill.  

The last couple of years have also seen some movement toward reshoring primary aluminum production to the U.S. In 2025, the Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations awarded Century Aluminum $500 million to construct the first U.S. primary aluminum smelter since 1980. Currently, the U.S. operates four aluminum smelters, two owned by Century Aluminum and two by Alcoa Corp. The new smelter will be developed jointly with Emirates Global Aluminum, and will be located in Inola, Oklahoma.  

While Century Aluminum President and CEO Jesse Gary says the new smelter is slated to break ground in 2026 and begin smelting aluminum by the end of 2029, the company is also growing supply in the near term. In April 2026, the company announced that it had completed expansion of its Mount Holly, South Carolina, plant, which will by itself increase U.S. primary aluminum production by 10%, according to the company. 

2 | Tarrifs and volatility

The tariff environment remains complicated, especially for metal goods and products. In June 2025, Section 232 tariffs on steel and metal were increased to 50% on steel and aluminum articles. The past year has seen two updates to the 232 tariffs: one in April designed to encourage other countries to use U.S. metals, with another shift in June to provide some relief to construction equipment vendors, according to reporting by ConstructConnect. Beyond Section 232 tariffs, trade tensions escalated again between the U.S. and Canada in late August. As of this writing, Canada has announced retaliatory tariffs, levying a 50% tax on U.S.-made steel and aluminum.  

While the tariff environment remains unpredictable, many company representatives interviewed say they have learned to deal with the volatility. “The new tariff environment has been extended enough that I think we've learned a lot from managing challenges with tariffs and material supply,” says Kimberly Ferro, commercial vice president Arconic Building and Construction Systems. Some companies continue to focus on price transparency and communication with vendors as markets fluctuate. “We feel we have a very good way to break it down for our clients so they can clearly see the difference [in price] and be able to pass that along to their clients in return,” says O’Malley. 

Frameless Hardware Co.’s Vice President of Manufacturing Armando Rodriguez says that in response to the combination of import tariffs, constrained supply from mills, and competing industrial supply, the company has adapted by “doubling down on U.S. extrusion partnerships, nearshoring supply chains, and maintaining deeper strategic inventories.”  

While companies have adapted to these new uncertainties, price volatility has changed the nature of quoting metal material and systems. “For so many years metal would maybe shift 10 cents in either direction. Now it can shift over $1 a pound in the wrong direction. No one can eat that especially on larger jobs,” says O’Malley. Mike Turner, president, commercial business group, YKK AP America Inc., says that quoting has become more “dynamic” recently due to an increase in quote volume. “Raw material volatility, coupled with broader cost pressures across the commercial construction sector, has driven a sharp rise in overall quote department volume,” he says. “As total project budgets exceed original estimates, general contractors and project managers are scrutinizing every trade to find savings. This has dramatically increased demand for quote revisions, alternate system options, and value engineering.” 

Pricing fluctuations can be particularly difficult for subcontractor clients that want to hold pricing for the purpose of their own bids, says John McClathey, vice president of marketing, Southern Aluminum Finishing (SAF). Metal that the company supplies can have an eight-week lead time and is paid for on arrival at their facility; that means the cost of the material has almost certainly changed in the meantime. The company’s solution is conversion pricing for subcontractor customers—setting a base price for clients to purchase and house product at the company’s facilities, with a secondary cost tied to one of the aluminum indexes. This way, customers can track when the cost environment is best for them to pay for and retrieve their material. 

While expanded transparency appears to be the best method for metal manufacturers and fabricators to communicate unpredictable pricing with customers, companies are attempting to internally cut operating costs as much as possible. Turner says the company increased the percentage of secondary aluminum used in its billet production to 50% as a “buffer against tariff volatility” and as a way to create “a more resilient, sustainable and cost-stabilized material stream.” Representatives for Fairfield Metal, a New Jersey-based metal fabricator, says the company “has taken a hard look at our internal costs to try and rework them and to remain as competitive as we can be in the current market.” 

3 | Future-proofing performance

While the marketplace remains unpredictable, architects and code-making bodies continue to set the bar higher for metal systems performance, and companies are increasingly seeing the convergence of performance aspects in design expectations. “Today's R&D is really about solving several requirements simultaneously. Architects and owners expect better thermal performance, larger openings, greater design flexibility, durability, sustainability and a competitive installed cost,” says Tammy Schroeder, director of marketing, Apogee Architectural Metals. Similarly, representatives for Sightline Commercial Systems say that architects still want the transparency and daylighting of glass and metal systems, as well as customization options. "A lot of what we're seeing comes down to balancing performance with design intent. Architects want cleaner sightlines, more transparency, and greater flexibility in how systems are integrated into the building.” 

As a result of these factors, Apogee’s product development timeline has become more holistic, says Schroeder, focusing now “on optimizing the complete building-envelope solution rather than improving a single performance characteristic.”   

Arconic’s Ferro also reports that architects are interested in greater multifunctionality of metal systems; while the company used to see demand for systems that had either impact or seismic performance, recently they’ve had requests for systems that combine those performance factors, she says. Codes are continuing to push performance, she adds, especially in major urban centers such as Boston, Seattle and New York, which have implemented stretch targets for whole building performance. 

Design interest and updated codes seem to also be converging on a desire for future-proof performance. Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope Director of Product Management Matthew Davis says that IECC and ASHRAE energy code updates are “pushing manufacturers to develop systems that don’t just meet today’s requirements, but anticipate and meet future changes as well.” 

4 | Demand for environmental impact data unlikely to slow

Architects remain interested in reducing the environmental impact of the built environment, according to company leaders, especially through use of environmental product declarations, which document the amount of carbon emissions created to produce a certain product. Frameless Hardware Co.’s Rodriguez says the company sees “accelerated” demand for product-specific EPDs and global warming potential data. “Driven by updated green building standards (such as LEED v5) and municipal decarbonization mandates, architects and owners now routinely require verified carbon metrics during early submittal phases,” he says. 

Aluminum manufacturing is understood to be one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions from the building sector, says Aluminum Extruders Council Market Development Consultant Lynn Brown, grouped together with concrete and steel. Brown has worked closely with the Aluminum Extruders Council to create their first industry average EPDs. While these developments allow companies to meet reporting requirements, the process has also helped quantify where in the supply chain carbon emissions happen, Brown says. For aluminum, most emissions happen upstream, during primary manufacturing, before metal fabricators and extruders receive material.  

While the federal reporting requirements that began under the Biden administration mostly ended in 2025, the escalation toward greater environmental impact documentation is unlikely to ebb, Brown says. Even after federal agencies ended requirements for low-carbon building products, states and regions have continued to show interest in low-carbon building, as has the design community.  “It's not going to be a clean evolution. It's going to be fits and starts, but the pressure is coming up from a variety of different places,” he says. Part of the recent evolution of these requirements includes a greater desire for specificity; while in the past, companies could submit industry average data for product types, architects increasingly require individual EPDs to reflect the specific product, and the specific facility where it was produced, he says. 

Part of that information can help companies to internally pinpoint where potential changes can be made to reduce emissions, Brown says, including things like changing power sources or implementing more energy-efficient equipment. “Anything you do about increasing your efficiency or your productivity is going to help,” he says.  

Given the continued interest in capturing carbon footprint data, the Aluminum Extruders Council worked with its members over the last year and a half to create an EPD generator tool, designed to prompt manufacturers for the information needed for an EPD. Beyond helping companies meet sustainability requirements for projects, the tool can also create a way to for manufacturers and fabricators to model scenarios for design teams. For example, manufacturers can show architects data demonstrating differences in environmental impact if low-carbon billet or more recycled material is used, Brown says. 

And EPDs are just part of the picture. Clay Wilhoite, project center operations manager at YKK AP America Inc. says that while in the past he’s been asked for EPDs for their products, now they’re being asked to share health product declarations, LEED information, recycled content and more depending on the project. “There's so much more information and data that we can track and manage now,” he says.