The South Campus of Shanghai Mountain–Les Roches College, situated on Chongming Island at the mouth of the Yangtze River, serves 7,000 students as both a vocational high school and university. Drawing inspiration from the soft terrain and water networks of the site—reminiscent of Cambridge—genarchitects approached the project not as a collection of buildings, but as the masterplan of a living academic town. The planning strategy organizes space through a network of streets, squares, lawns, courtyards, and tree-lined paths, establishing a legible and walkable framework that supports interaction and community. Rather than traditional single-use school blocks, each building is a mixed-use complex combining teaching, administration, performance, public life, and private rest. This “path-first” design prioritizes movement, daily experience, and sensory engagement, proposing a participatory and life-oriented vision for contemporary educational urbanism.