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Abstract Soft deployable structures – unlike conventional piecewise rigid deployables based on hinges and springs – can assume intricate 3‐D shapes, thereby enabling transformative soft robotic and manufacturing technologies. Their virtually infinite degrees of freedom allow precise control over the final shape. The same enabling high dimensionality, however, poses a challenge for solving the inverse problem: fabrication of desired 3D structures requires manufacturing technologies with extensive local actuation and control, and a trial‐and‐error search over a large design space. Both of these shortcomings are addressed by first developing a simplified planar fabrication approach that combines two ingredients: strain mismatch between two layers of a composite shell and kirigami cuts that relieves localized stress. In principle, it is possible to generate targeted 3‐D shapes by designing the appropriate kirigami cuts and the amount of prestretch (without any local control). Second, a data‐driven physics‐guided framework is formulated that reduces the dimensionality of the inverse design problem using autoencoders and efficiently searches through the “latent” parameter space in an active learning approach. The rapid design procedure is demonstrated via a range of target shapes, such as peanuts, pringles, flowers, and pyramids. Experiments and our numerical predictions are found to be in good agreement. 

Abstract Fully soft bistable mechanisms have shown extensive applications ranging from soft robotics, wearable devices, and medical tools, to energy harvesting. However, the lack of design and fabrication methods that are easy and potentially scalable limits their further adoption into mainstream applications. Herein, a top–down planar approach is presented by introducing Kirigami‐inspired engineering combined with a pre‐stretching process. Using this method, Kirigami‐Pre‐stretched Substrate‐Kirigami trilayered precursors are created in a planar manner; upon release, the strain mismatch—due to the pre‐stretching of substrate—between layers will induce an out‐of‐plane buckling to achieve targeted 3D bistable structures. By combining experimental characterization, analytical modeling, and finite element simulation, the effect of the pattern size of Kirigami layers and pre‐stretching on the geometry and stability of resulting 3D composites is explored. In addition, methods to realize soft bistable structures with arbitrary shapes and soft composites with multistable configurations are investigated, which may encourage further applications. This method is demonstrated by using bistable soft Kirigami composites to construct two soft machines: (i) a bistable soft gripper that can gently grasp delicate objects with different shapes and sizes and (ii) a flytrap‐inspired robot that can autonomously detect and capture objects.