As an architect you probably understand things like the use of passive solar. That is probably the best use of solar I can think of. Design structures in such a way as to take advantage on insolation when needed, and screen it when it's not needed. Better for large covered areas like big-box retail stores to put in skylights instead of feel-good gimmicks like PV panels.
I guess I'm not sure about the waste heat issue. The climate models I've seen account for it, but it is a relatively minor contributor to the global climate effects. GHG and particulate accumulation results in a systemic change to the atmosphere, leading to more heat trapping on a worldwide scale. It is a systemwide change in the atmosphere. Certainly waste heat sources contribute to the heat load but the primary driver is insolation. Without the greenhouse effect, waste heat becomes a multitude of point sources where normal heat rejection through radiation and evaporative cooling becomes dominant.
Think back to the streamlined cars of the 1930s, google DYMAXION CAR by Buckminster Fuller. The VW bug is just about the only intelligent aerodynamic form left on the road, “bricks” with single occupants are the norm. A cubical brick has 14 times the aerodrag of a similar cross section torpedo/fish form. They well understood that in the 1920s/1930s and thus the bullet noses and tapered tails. This also was the period that airplane design was being adapted to high speed airflow.
But then oil energy got real cheap : boutique designer fantasies meant boxy cars and the hell w/aerodrag losses. This went on from WWII until the oil crisis of 1973, but by then the “box” mentality had become almost genetic. Then about 20+ years ago crude aeroshells started appearing on semitruck cabs as the bullet nosed “fish head”. Now they are the boutique designs and standard on all new trucks.
But the box still has its flat back/double doors with the inevitable turbulence-drag from the partial vacuum-hole it blows thru the air. Fish have TAPERED TAILS, thus allowing laminar flow in the recollapsing air, thus minimal rear drag. So where’s the tapered fish tail to go with the boutique fish head over the cab?
So here you have truckers going out of business because of rising diesel prices and flat cartage rates. Could you find even one out of a million that stands there, holding a dead fish in one hand, and LOOKS at his truck form the side, and makes the psychic connection : where’s the TAPERED TAIL?
Now, how would you do it? It has to pooch out into a curved pyramid form at highway speeds(70mph)on straight freeway lanes, but retract upon slowing to a stop/slow traffic speeds. It also has to swing out of the way upon loading/unloading(opening rear doors).
Solution : either parachute form with edge umbrella ribs that stiffen, on a 9’x10’ frame that swings 270 deg to the truck side upon loading/unloading(a 3rd rear door); or a double balloon, inner surface presses against the back doors, outer surface pooches out into the curved pyramid form. It is blown up by internal high psi source, then sucked back below 25 mph upon slowing to a stop.
Embedded LED lights for tail/turn/brakes. Cost for retrofit : probably about the same as the front aeroshell. Fuel savings : from 1 mpg to 3 mpg for your standard semitruck. Long hauls on flat freeway lanes would see the biggest savings.
So maybe one of these days, some(right brain)boutique aeroshell designer will SEE the tapered fish tail and UNDERSTAND why FISH have been around a lot longer than boxy semitrucks have...and they don’t have 350HP engines, just “wagging their tails” on alternating Karman Vortices, and minimal energy expenditures thereby.
As to roof top solar on box stores : picture your standard perforated acoustic tile with random holes. Those holes are called Helmholtz Cells, virtually all the sound(compression wave)energy that goes into the hole is trapped inside. Same thing with a 3’(above roof plane)high square pipe/hole thru the roof of the store. Tilted, acrylic flat top plate for runoff, swinging(square)insul vane in shaft that closes down for nite(photocell activated).
Since sunlight is variable(goes behind clouds)you’d have variable lights on dimmers that maintain a constant lumen level inside. The only difference you might notice is a subtle shift in spectrum(solar vs fluorescent). If the tilted tops were all faced south(north high end), you could have a higher reflective panel sticking above the north face, and east-west side panels that slide up-down as the sun arcs across the sky. That, with reflective interiors in this sun-pipe, would give much more light/heat.
As a practical matter though, this requires a LOT of roof penetrations/flashing and constant maintenance of washing/cleaning off dust that constantly falls from the sky. There is also a code limit of 25% of floor area for skylights, and in a fire those sun-pipes become exhaust ports. But major stores usually have sprinkler systems anyway, so that may not be a big safety issue. And too, VERY rarely are major stores chock-a-block full of people, and they know where the exit doors are anyway.
So, yes, your idea has merit, now who can you talk into doing it? Stress CLEAN-GREEN.
As to the WASTE HEAT issue, I’m thinking way ahead. You see, I KNOW of several non-polluting, non-nuclear energy sources that have been discovered by my new energy collegues, including anti-gravity. Think HARD : if you gave everyone in the world his own magic flying carpet, the entire third world would be landing on YOUR lawn like a plague of locusts, a FLOOD 500 times greater than the current mexican FLOOD. Be careful what you wish for...
And, if you give everyone(7 billion people)a free KW(from this new energy source)they’ll DEMAND a free MW, then GW. Do the math. The only way the earth gets RID of heat is by blackbody T^4 radiation; conduction, convection don’t count. It’s looking thru the microscope vs the telescope. You see it as TOO LITTLE energy, what happens if EVERYONE has whole atomic bombs worth of free energy to play with?
Do you leave a loaded shotgun in a nursery for children to play with? Or let a 5 year old drive a semitruck(even w/tapered tail)on the freeway? Thus now we have escalating energy prices as controls on TOO MUCH waste heat. Remove those controls and almost instantly you’ll get a HOT, STINKING GARBAGE DUMP of a biosphere. No, not a cleaner, greener world; idiots, children, criminals will bring that naive view to an abrupt end(as you watch the outside thermometer rising....rising....).