The basic concept seems fairly obvious to me. At least on a small scale.

My house is a masonry exterior with a mostly southern exposure. It soaks up the sun and keeps the house very very warm late into the evening... which is not a helpful feature when it's 90F every day of the summer. My plan was to do basically what they described here. Setup some trellis 4 ft or so some the house, and plant some fast-growing vines.

Anything to shade the house will obviously be beneficial from a cooling perspective. The vines are mostly to reduce the cost of shading and increase the aesthetics.

Now what plants are the best balance of low water usage, high growth, low maintenance? That's a good question and I look forward to seeing what UCDavis comes up with.