The cross-shaped design of this building echoes the urban environment, with four prominent branches pointing to the landmarks of Caen: the historical sites of convents and monasteries in the north and west, the central railway station in the south and the newly-built area in the east. At the same time, two intersecting geometric figures also imply the logic of library function arrangement. The four branches correspond to a subject: humanities, science and technology, literature and art gather in the large reading room on the first floor to stimulate the dynamic line between different bibliographies. The main library space is built in the middle of a solid cross, and the architectural design is defined as the opposite of fiction and fact.
As a city center where people gather and share knowledge and information, public space is the most important part of library design. At the entrance of the first floor is a large open space, with a newsstand and the entrance of 150 auditorium, an exhibition space and a restaurant with an outdoor waterfront terrace. There are a lot of reading workspaces on the first floor,120,000 reading materials. The paper or electronic versions of these books are arranged on the shelves. The electronic expansion of paper books is also placed on the shelves, which is one of the new multimedia features of this library. There is a children's area on the top floor of the library, which also serves as office and logistics. Archives and special historical collections are safely and dryly stored in concrete basements. An innovative waterproof film is applied to the basement surrounded by water to protect the collectibles in the concrete wall.