The Plant Contract

The Plant Contract presents contemporary art that changes human perception of the vegetal world, after centuries of plant disassociation, and returns us to the genius and solace of “nature and thought”.

The wasteland and the wilding: the aesthetic of abandoned and reclaimed green spaces -- Green man: human-plant hybrids -- Robotany and aesthetics -- Bio rights: earth of agonies and eco-punks -- Eco-feminism: plants as becoming-woman -- Ungrounding plant life: the after-effects -- On rhizomes and dead trees

The Conditions of Contract prepared by FIDIC are used extensively as the standard contract of choice in international construction and civil engineering projects. Engineers working on these projects need to be aware of these contracts, but as the forms are complex it can be difficult to draw together all the sub-clauses relating to a particular issue. The FIDIC Plant and Design-Build Forms of Contract Illustrated crystallizes the requirements of the FIDIC P&DB contract into a range of simple to follow flow charts, providing a clear and concise way to rapidly assimilate the requirements of each clause. The relationship between the various clauses in the contract, the concepts, process methods and actors involved in each sub-clause are all easily seen, and key issues around each topic (such as periods allowed, notices, etc) are all documented. In addition, related sub-clauses and/or important additional documents are linked so that the reader has a full understanding of the wider implications of each clause.

Covert Plants contributes to newly emerging discourses on the implications of vegetal life for the arts and culture. This stretches to changes in our perception of 'nature' and to the adapting roles of botany, evolutionary ecology, and environmental aesthetics in the humanities. Its editors and contributors seek various expressions of vegetal life rather than the mere representation of such, and they proceed from the conviction that a rigorous approach to thinking with and through vegetal life must be interdisciplinary. At a time when urgent calls for restorative care and reparative action have been sounded for the environment, this essay volume presents a range of academic and creative perspectives, from evolutionary biology to literary theory, philosophy to poetry, which respond to the perplexing problems and paradoxes of vegetal thinking. Representations of vegetal life often include plant analogies and plant imagery. These representations have at times obscured the diversity of plant behavior and experience. Covert Plants probes the implications of vegetal life for thought and how new plant science is changing our perception of the vegetal - around us and in us. How can we think, speak, and write about plant life without falling into human-nature dyads, or without tumbling into reductive theoretical notions about the always complex relations between cognition and action, identity and value, subject and object? A full view of this shifting perspective requires a 'stereoscopic' lens through which to view plants, but also simultaneously to alter our human-centered viewpoint. Plants are no longer the passive object of contemplation, but are increasingly resembling 'subjects, ' 'stakeholders, ' or 'actors.' As such, the plant now makes unprecedented demands upon the nature of contemplation itself. Moreover, the aesthetic, political, and legal implications of new knowledge regarding plants' ability to communicate, sense, and learn require intensive, cross-disciplinary investigation. By doing this, we can intervene into current attitudes to climate change and sustainability, and hopefully revise, for the better, human philosophies, ethics, and aesthetics that touch upon plant life. TABLE OF CONTENTS// Baylee Brits and Prudence Gibson, "Introduction: Covert Plants" - Prudence Gibson and Michael Marder, "Art Expresses Its Own Appearance: A Conversation with Michael Marder" - Prudence Gibson, "The Colour Green" - Baylee Brits, "Brain Trees: Neuroscientific Metaphor and Botanical Thought" - Dalia Nassar, "Metaphoric Plants: Goethe's Metamorphosis of Plants and the Metaphors of Reason" - Stephen Muecke, "Mixed up with Trees: The Gadgur and the Dreaming" - Monica Gagliano, "Eco-psychology and the Return to the Dream of Nature" - Suzanne Anker, "The Blue Rose" - Susie Pratt, "Trees as Landlords and Other Public Experiments: An Interview with Natalie Jeremijenko" - Tessa Laird, "Spores from Space: Becoming the Alien" - Jennifer Mae Hamilton, "Gardening After the Anthropocene: Creating Different Relations between Humans and Edible Plants in Sydney" - Lucas Ihlein, "Agricultural Inventiveness: Beyond Environmental Management?" - Andrew Belletty, "An Ear to the Ground" - Ben Woodard, "Continuous Green Abstraction: Embodied Knowledge, Intuition, and Metaphor" - Lisa Dowdall, "Figures" - Poems by Luke Fischer, Justin Clemens, Paul Dawson, and Tamryn Bennett.

Nuclear Power Plant Development covers the intricacies of developing a nuclear power plant project from a construction and legal standpoint. It deals with structuring, drafting, and negotiating a wide range of standard and specialised contracts relating to the development of nuclear power-generation projects and also covers the other forms of power-generating facilities. It covers the forms of contract, the law involved internationally, and potential areas of pitfalls and how to avoid them in a systematic format covering various forms of projects. It is suitable for solicitors and barristers involved in the contracting for such facilities and the handling of litigation related to them, government officials involved in the commissioning and development of nuclear facilities for regional governments, and engineers and contractors involved in the actual work of design and contract administration and dispute resolution.

If you want a book that you can use on almost a daily basis in a construction-contractor organization, then this is it. Whether you work as managing director, business development manager, chief proposal manager, lead engineer & estimator, the operation manager, project control manager, cost control engineers, procurement manager, information technology, HR or even in a corporate advisory role, the skills outlined in this book can increase your role & effectiveness & create an impact from the first reading. This book gives a practical understanding of the skills required to become a high-performance manager in your area of expertise. It will help you to: - win high-value construction contracts & execute it with effective control to ensure predicted profit or more - develop stronger, more productive working relationship with customers - market your services, diversify effectively and build powerful networks - secure greater satisfied customer base and prequalify with new customers - work effectively in less formal and hierarchical ways on projects & initiatives - enhance your own worth & value in the organization

When all parties involved in the construction process fully understand their roles and are able to anticipate potential points of conflict, disputes and delays will be minimised. The Employer’s and Engineer’s Guide to the FIDIC Conditions of Contract sets out the essential administrative requirements of a FIDIC based contract by reference to the FIDIC 1999 Red Book. The obligations and duties of the Employer and the Engineer are identified and discussed. Potential pitfalls are highlighted and likely consequences pointed out. The importance of the Employer’s role in the preparation of tenders, which fully reflect his requirements and duties and obligations arising in the execution of the works, is emphasised. The key role of the Engineer in the effective administration of contracts after award is examined and commentary provided. Included in the guide are a number of appendices, including model letters which will be of value to less experienced staff (particularly those whose mother-tongue is not the English language). Engineers, quantity surveyors and project managers engaged in the contractual administration of international projects using FIDIC forms of contract will find the concise guidance in simple and jargon-free language provided here invaluable. This, together with the author’s earlier book, Contractor’s Guide to the FIDIC Conditions of Contract - which describes the duties, rights and responsibilities of the Contractor – represents the totality of supervision, design and execution of construction projects executed under the FIDIC Conditions of Contract. This book’s companion website offers invaluable resources to freely download, adapt and use: Model letters for use by the Employer Model letters for use by the Contractor Sample Interim Payment Certificate Model Form for Submissions to the Engineer Model Form of Engineer’s Order for Varied Works Model Form of Daywork/Daily Record Sheets