Simple solution: use a CardLayout to help you swap JPanels.
- Place a JPanel that uses CardLayout in the BorderLayout.SOUTH position, say called cardHolderPanel.
- Add the three "card" JPanels into the cardHolderPanel using unique String constants.
- Swap the cards by calling
show(cardHolderPanel, APPROPRIATE_STRING_CONSTANT)
on your CardLayout.
Tutorial: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/card.html