The talk is concerned with the directed control of fluidic instabilities to program shapes. While instabilities are traditionally regarded as a route towards failure in engineering, I aim to follow a different path; taming fluidic instabilities and harnessing the patterns and structures they naturally form. This methodology capitalizes on the inherent periodicity, scalability, versatility and robustness of mechanical instabilities. This new design paradigm – building with instabilities – calls for an improved understanding of instabilities and pattern formation in complex media. While stability analysis is a classic topic in mechanics, little is known on the so called inverse problem: finding the optimal set of initial conditions and interactions that will be transmuted into a target shape without direct external intervention. While the epicenter of the research is fundamental, utilizing instabilities to structure soft materials opens new research directions in the study of the behavior and deformations of architected soft materials, inspired by natural soft-materials that self-assemble into well defined structures to display remarkable properties. More broadly, the talk is rooted on the basis of recognizing model experiments as a valuable and powerful tool for discovery and exploration, in turn seeding the development of formal and predictive models.