Developmental outcomes are remarkably constant despite environmental, inter-individual, and evolutionary changes. My group focuses on the mechanisms that enable stereotypic lung and kidney branching morphogenesis, and the precise development of the central nervous system. All three structures form via patterning, growth, and deformation of a single-layered pseudostratified epithelium. I will discuss the mechanisms that ensure precise epithelial patterning, the physical principles behind and the developmental consequences of the complex 3D cell shapes in pseudostratified epithelia, and finally the mechanical constraints that guide the deformation and outgrowth of the epithelium into its characteristic shape.