The Javalambre Astrophysical Observatory is a new ground based facility under construction at the Sierra de Javalambre (Teruel, Spain). The observatory is defined for carrying out large all-sky surveys in robotic mode. It will consist of two telescopes: T250, a large etendue telescope of 2.5m aperture and 3 deg diameter field of view, and T80, a 0.8m auxiliary telescope with a field of view diameter of 2 deg. The immediate objective of the T250 is a photometric survey of 8000 square degrees projected on the sky, using narrow-band filters (~ 100Å width) in the whole optical range, following the specifications defined in this paper1 for the measurement of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations along the line of sight with photometric redshifts. To do this, T250 will hold a panoramic camera of ~ 14 large format (~ 10.5k×10.5k) CCDs covering the entire focal plane. The present paper describes the overall project conceived to comply with the scientific and technical requirements and the managerial approach considered. Other aspects such as the expected instrumentation at the telescopes, the operation of the observatory, the software/hardware specifications, and the data handling will be also outlined.