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Cells self-organize into functional, ordered structures during tissue morphogenesis. Examples range from the formation of endothelial cell networks necessary for blood vessel formation to sheets of epithelial tissue that deform into complex shapes. Many cell types exert mechanical traction forces, actively generated by molecular motors in their cytoskeleton, to deform both the extracellular matrix (ECM) and neighboring cells. By combining a linear elastic model for substrate-mediated cell-cell mechanical interactions and an agent-based model for cell movement, we show that force dipoles modeling contractile cells in elastic media form chains, rings and branched networks characteristic of dipolar interactions. Motivated by the structural features and transport functions of vascular networks, we extract several network morphological metrics from our simulations and predict how these depend on cell density, the stiffness and compressibility of the substrate, and on noise in cell dynamics. We conclude with some thoughts on the applications of these studies to tissue engineering, as well as on the emergent behavior of active matter with long-range interactions. |