PART I - IT'S NOT AS SIMPLE AS FINDING A METAPHORICAL THEME
I don't believe you will find wide-sweeping solutions to your problem by, for example, using construction-related words.
From my experience in translation, it seems to me that the Japanese word chosen is the word that most accurately describes the action, and not necessarily based on a metaphor. My personal opinion is that Japanese writing, based on Kanji, lends itself more to 'recombination' of meanings than 'borrowing' from a theme. To me, this is a major difference between word-based and character-based vocabularies.
For instance, my wife is a medical translator, and I've noticed that words that are extremely hard to understand in English are incredibly simple in Japanese because they are based on combining meanings. For example 'ozostomia' is 口臭 (mouth + stink). peribronchitis is 気管支周囲炎 (windpipe+around+inflamed). Don't even need a dictionary to understand them.
I know the argument can be made that these are based on Latin or Greek, and one can trace the etymology. I think demonstrates the inherent need in English to 'pull' from the past. Pull from Latin, pull from Greek, pull from similar-meaning words in other contexts and adapt them. Whereas, Chinese and Japanese have, for lack of a better word, a lego-block vocabulary. And since the need to pull words from the past is not needed, I don't believe this mindset to use metaphorical themes is prevalent.
I've digressed a bit here, but what I'm trying to say is that it's very easy to make new words in Japanese, and not so much in English - so in English we tend to look for 'parallels' and adopt an existing word into a new capacity. We can't expect the same perspective from Japanese language, which I think is what you are looking for.
PART II - BUT HERE ARE SOME WAYS TO FIND THE RIGHT WORD
However, if you are not sure what word to use, the best thing to do is check example sentences, rather than the words in your dictionary. Your probability of success making a metaphor-based guess of the words listed in your dictionary will not, in my opinion, allow you to use the word confidently, or even necessarily provide you the proper word.
I recommend checking any of the many online resources, (weblio is good these days) by typing the word in question, and comparing the meaning you 'want' against the sentences. For example, if you type 'architecture' you will see sentences that talk about the architecture of a building, and others that are about '16-bit architecture'. Compare and choose the most obvious and common words.
If I am translating a document with uncommon, obtuse, or difficult words, I will usually try to find some established use in patents. WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) is one good resource for this; with 2.2 million patents on file, you are sure to find something. Abstracts of Japanese patents are usually in Japanese and English on the same page, so it's easy to establish a usage history.
I hope this can help you when you're stuck, even though it may not have been the wide-brush answer to your problems you may have hoped for.