The Observatorio Astrofsico de Javalambre in Spain is a new astronomical facility particularly conceived for carrying out large sky surveys with two unprecedented telescopes of unusually large elds of view: the JST/T250, a 2.55m telescope of 3deg eld of view, and the JAST/T80, an 83cm telescope of 2deg eld of view. The most immediate objective of the two telescopes for the next years is carrying out two unique photometric surveys of several thousands square degrees, J-PAS and J-PLUS, each of them with a wide range of scientic applications, like e.g. large structure cosmology and Dark Energy, galaxy evolution, supernovae, Milky Way structure, exoplanets, among many others. To do that, JST and JAST will be equipped with panoramic cameras under development within the J-PAS collaboration, JPCam and T80Cam respectively, which make use of large format (~10k×10k) CCDs covering the entire focal plane. This paper describes the current status and expected schedule of the overall project, the main characteristics of the telescopes, their cameras, the technical requirements of the two planned surveys, as well as the general operation strategy of the observatory.