I sometimes describe my approach as "chaos gardening" -- try something, even something a little crazy, and see what happens. Sometimes it's inspired by things I see other folks doing. In that spirit, a few years ago I tried building a living wall to help shade the house.

The picture gives the idea. The dark green passion fruit you see in the upper middle -- yes, it's one single plant, and the picture doesn't even capture its full extent -- is shading a good portion of the western exterior. (The yellowish green are some schefflera that were already there.) I can't quantify exactly how much heat it prevents the house from absorbing. However, just by walking along the house there's a noticeable difference, as the unshaded sections are radiating much more heat.

The frame is still only the first design I tried. If I were to rebuild it, I'd add some kind of perpendicular cross brace for extra stability. When it's covered in foliage it catches a lot of wind. The whole thing is more stable than you might expect, though, between the weight of the plant and its rootedness to the ground.

Another thing I'd change if I had to re-do it would be to move it away from the house a bit more. I left it some room to grow, but it ended up being thicker than I expected. In any case, you probably don't want it actually growing on the house, and every so often I have to steer some of its tendrils in a different direction to prevent it. My original inspiration was seeing this kind of setup on another house, only they had it actually attached. I can only imagine what kind of long-term damage that would do to the gutters or roof.

The metal frame is made of ordinary galvanized pipe. I discovered pretty quickly that the threads on the pipes weren't galvanized, so I covered them in beeswax to seal them. If you're in a hot/dry environment instead of a hot/wet one like us, you could probably use a wood frame instead.