Morphogenesis results from the molecular events that cause specialisation and the cellular mechanics that these developmental programmes encode. Typically, organ precursors consist of different cell types, each exhibiting different properties, but all needing to be integrated into highly patterned multicellular arrays that ultimately enable function. How does tissue organisation emerge from the coordinated behaviours of individual cells? We look at this problem in the development of the auditory epithelium in the inner ear. In this talk I focus on coordinating the cellular properties that drives the morphogenesis of the early inner ear as it transform from a superficially located disk of thickened epithelium to an internalised otocyst, as well as the changes in junctional properties that may drive the planar polarity of the auditory epithelium.